


Heat

by Ryoko21



Category: Captain America (Movies), Iron Man (Movies), The Avengers (2012), Thor (Movies)
Genre: Alpha Tony Stark, Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Alternate Universe - Alpha/Beta/Omega, Angst, Dubious Consent, Group Sex, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Mating Cycles/In Heat, Omega Clint Barton, Rape/Non-con Elements, Spanking, Threesome - M/M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-20
Updated: 2015-05-02
Packaged: 2017-12-12 09:29:43
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 25
Words: 95,654
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/810026
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ryoko21/pseuds/Ryoko21
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Clint was a badass. He was an assassin, a killer, a terrorist, and an archer. But he was also an omega. And as long as his organization kept control of the suppressants that kept him from going in to heat, he’d keep doing whatever they asked. No matter how distasteful he found it, or how little of his soul was left at the end. </p><p>But when Clint is injected with heat inducers, rendering his suppressants useless, can SHIELD's top agents save the archer before he goes mad?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

The biggest downside of working for a terrorist group is that there’s a ton of them out there. Everybody’s moving, angling for themselves, their own interests, and sometimes it’s hard to tell who’s on your side and who’s not. As a sniper, Clint likes to be shown a target and shoot it. He can’t get his head around all the inner workings of the organization, all the lies and espionage. Natasha’s good at that, good at seeing through people and working them to get her own way. But she’s been in Russia for the last two months, and Clint has been on his own.

                And, apparently, Clint hasn’t been doing so well.

                It all started out fine. He’d been sent with another agent into the field. Deep cover assassination. Only, they’d gotten into the field, met up with the target, and the other agent had promptly handed him over to the assholes running rival organization. The other terrorist cell wanted information from Clint, wanted him to spill the whereabouts of the other operatives.

                Which Clint would have been fine with.  Other than Natasha, Clint didn’t have emotional attachments to any of the other people in his organization. As a matter of fact, he pretty much thought they were all jackasses. Not that this new organization seemed much better (was there really a comparison between jackasses and assholes? Clint thought it was pretty much splitting hairs at this point) but they didn’t have a supply of biology suppressants for him. Not the black market, high end suppressant he needed, anyway.

                Clint was a badass. He was an assassin, a killer, a terrorist, and an archer. But he was also an omega. And as long as his organization kept control of the suppressants that kept him from going in to heat, he’d keep doing whatever they asked. No matter how distasteful he found it, or how little of his soul was left at the end.

                Because the alternative was too horrifying to contemplate.

                It took about a week for his suppressants to start wearing off, for the nausea and fever to begin. Clint knew, realistically, that he had another three weeks before the true heat hit, but the first waves always terrified him almost as much as the heat itself. Contemplating how bad it could get was almost as bad as going through it.

                Clint was pretty confident that his group would come for him. They’d only let him hit his heat before once, and then he’d been stranded in the arctic and, as much as it sucked, he really couldn’t blame them for that one. Plus, it had only been one day of excruciating, hellish nightmare. There was no way they’d let him go into heat  with these fucks.

                Unless, of course, these fucks managed to get their hands on experimental, highly illegal heat-inducing drugs. He’d fought them, of course. Fought like they were trying to peel his skin off when they gave him the injection, but even Hawkeye isn’t big enough to take out eight brawny alphas at the same time.

Not without his bow, anyway.

                They’d thrown him back in a cell after that, and fuck if Clint knew who was the smartass that had leaked that he was an omega, but they were gonna pay! That thought, and that thought alone, pretty much occupied his mind and kept the, “Oh shit, Oh shit,” at bay.

                So when the raid came, with a half dozen SHEILD agents that had no clue what the hell they were doing, it was at least a welcome distraction, even if it didn’t improve his odds of surviving by much.  At least he’d die at the end of a gun, instead of letting his heat torture him to death.

                Clint probably didn’t look like much of a threat when they found him panting in the back corner of one of the cells. His hands had been zip-tied together, and he hadn’t even managed to wiggle out of them. The effects of the heat had already started, the early nausea and stomach cramping, the headache and the fever. For a group of soldiers taking apart a terrorist organization, these guys were young. All in their mid-twenties, and all looking half-terrified.

                “Fuck. They get you guys from the local boyscout troop or what?” Clint barked, because at least one of these kids was gonna have his head blown off in the next twenty minutes. Clint was pretty sure it wasn’t just the nausea making him sick.

                “It was supposed to be a training exercise!” one of the boys blurted out, nearly hysterical.

                “Wait,” Clint barked, gasping because it hurt his bruised ribs to laugh. “Are you telling me that you guys – a _trainee_ group of SHEILD agents -  just happened to stumble into a terrorist cell? For real?”

                “We’re special ops trainees,” the oldest one defended. “We’ve been specially selected for these kinds of missions.”

                “Any of you seen field action?” Clint asked, and laughed again when no one answered. “Alright, help me up,” he demanded, and one of the dumb fucks actually moved to help him before they’d even checked him for weapons.

                “Who says we’re going to let you out?” asked the one Clint was counting as a ringleader because he had half a tick of common sense.

                “Who says I’m gonna lead you to the exit?” Clint asked, “Oh, right, that was me. Anyone else know the way out of here? No? Alright then, try to keep the fuck up.”

                How did his life get like this? Was there a “Let’s fuck with Clint” sign on his back? Cause it couldn’t be normal to run into this much random shit in one day.

                One thing could be said about the trainees; they knew how to haul ass. The mishmash group was halfway across the complex before the terrorists even realized that there were intruders among them. And Clint hadn’t been bluffing about leading them out. The terrorists had taken refuge in a series of old mining tunnels on the outskirts of a small village in the New Mexico desert, and the whole compound was nearly a maze. Luckily, Clint had a photographic memory and was easily able to slip the group of soldiers through the tunnels.

It was only near the entrance that they faced resistance from the cell. A group of five terrorists opened fire as Clint as his group dodged behind discarded mining equipment. The soldiers Clint was leading returned fire, however ineffectually. Clint tried not to feel too annoyed when the ringleader decided to stick his head outside the cover to return fire, and Clint nearly lost a finger yanking him back to safety. The gash that appeared across the back of his hand bled slowly and Clint didn’t pay it much mind, but he cursed the young soldier well enough to make him blush.

                “Gimme that,” Clint snarled and snagged the handgun right out of the hands of the tiny soldier –soldierette? Baby soldier? – which should have told the kid right there that he might want to choose another profession. Three shots, two more dead bodies on Clint’s roster, and one small explosion when Clint’s third bullet hit a fuel canister outside the tunnel. It was enough cover, and Clint had the boys running for the trees before the terrorists got their shit together enough to resume fire.

                And by that time, SHEILD helicopters with actual, adult shield agents were circling, dropping men who (Clint hoped) actually knew how to use their weapons.

                Which, actually, was bad news. Because Clint, technically, was also a terrorist.

                Clint made a dash for the woods. He tried not to be too pissed when the ringleader of his band of boyscouts tried to grab him. He’d only taken a bullet for the kid, no big deal. Clint twisted out of the kid’s grip without much trouble, just another reminder that these kids probably should not be in open combat, but he couldn’t regret bringing them. Clint’s body count was already too high, already included too many boys just barely on the cusp of adulthood. Too many dumb shits that, really, just didn’t know what they were getting into.

                When a pair of senior agents caught up with him moments later, talking him to the ground and pinning him while he struggled and cursed their fat asses because damn! They were heavy on his ribs.

                “Are you guys waiting for something, or are you just too lazy to kill me?” Clint shouted, which was probably not his best line ever. He gave himself a pass, though, because he was pretty sure he could feel his ribs grinding together and the pain had him seeing spots.

                When a man in a suit approached, Clint was pretty sure he’d lost his mind.

                “My name is Agent Coulson,” the man said. The SHEILD agents hauled him to his feet, and thankfully they were rough enough that he didn’t have to do any of the work, because Clint wasn’t really sure he could have stood on his own. “I’d like to thank you for saving our new recruits back there. However, you’re still under arrest.”

                “Just shoot me already,” Clint snarked, and passed out.


	2. Chapter 2

                When Clint woke, he was strapped to a chair. There was a dark-haired man with a white lab coat pulled over a purple button down shirt. He was wearing old khaki shorts and beat-up running shoes, but looked totally at ease amongst the test tubes and charts, looking into a state of the art microscope.

                “Who’re you?” Clint asked, and was proud of himself for hardly slurring his words. Clint found that he was sitting in a metal chair, one arm strapped with several pieces of arm-grade Velcro to the arm of the chair, palm up and with a tell-tale bandage at the vein. The other was handcuffed to the leg, and Clint glanced down to see that the legs of the chair were screwed to the floor. Moving his head made him dizzy and he was forced to shut his eyes, and by the time he’d opened them the man in the lab coat had rolled his chair to sit in front of Clint.

                “I’m Dr. Banner. I’m a physicist and an expert in gamma radiation, but I also have a specialization in biochemistry and alpha/omega physiology. They called me in when they realized you’d been on suppressants.”

                “So they’ve decided to keep me alive long enough to get some intel out of me?”

                “I think they’re hoping for a little longer than that. It’s not many agencies that would call an operative out of India over a terrorist they only need alive for a few hours.”

                “Great,” Clint said, and beamed as sarcastically as possible, because in his experience if something seemed too good to be true, it probably was. “So you’re just gonna fix me right up, huh? With no ulterior motives at all.”

                “I know you don’t trust this organization, and so you probably don’t trust me. But I want you to know that I am not interest in questioning you.”

                “Sure,” Clint agreed, because it was easier to go along with it for now. Plus, Clint felt like shit. His body ached all over, his head was fuzzy with fever, and there was nothing in his stomach to throw up or that would have been his third worry. It was making him testy.

But the good doctor just rolled his eyes and continued.

                “We’re not even going to start with how dangerous the amounts of suppressants you’ve been taking are. Safe to say, you should be dead a couple times over. What we are going to start with is how badly your body is reacting to the fact that it has drugs in it to keep it from going into heat and drugs in it that force it to go into heat. It also has a buildup of hormones from not having a heat in- what? Five years? Ten?” Clint doesn’t say eight, but only because the doctor is a beta.

If the doctor had been an alpha, Clint would have told him the exact date and time of his last heat. He might have stopped before he described how he’d disobeyed his organization and they’d thrown him in a cell for two weeks without his suppressants. Might have described how he’d begged, actually begged anyone to fuck him, and how most of them had obliged, but it hadn’t helped. There weren’t enough alpha pheromones in the country to put his body right after the suppressants had been doing their work for two years. After two weeks in the cell, when he’d been nearly dead and more than half mad, they’d put him back on his suppressants and sent him back into the field.

“Cut the shit and tell me what it’s going to take to get you to put me back on the suppressants,” Clint said, because if he wasn’t going to beg then he figured he might as well be a jackass about it. It wasn’t like a bit of smartmouth was going to hurt his chances that much.

“It would take a whole hell of a lot, because at this point they will kill you, and I try not to kill people just because they piss me off,” Dr. Banner snipped back, but there was an amused half-smile on his face and Clint was starting to think he might like this guy. Until his words actually penetrated the fog in Clint’s brain.

“So… Wait, the plan is to torture me to death then? Because having an insatiable heat cycle until I go insane and die sounds like a pretty shitty way to spend the rest of my life!” Clint hadn’t set out to scream at the doctor, didn’t really think that was going to help his chances of not dying in a hellish nightmare of lust, but he was a little on edge. Probably the hormones.

Clint was gasping now, the ache in his midsection was nearly all-consuming. He wanted to warp his arms around his waist, but one was still strapped to the arm of the chair, palm up so the doctor could take blood. The other was handcuffed to the leg of the chair, giving him just enough freedom to bring it to his thigh, but not enough to put pressure on his aching stomach. The pain was bad. Worse than when the terrorists had held him down and drove their boots into his gut.

“This should help,” the doctor said quietly, pulling up Clint’s shirt just enough to apply a hot wrap to middle. It dulled the ache a bit, not enough that it stopped hurting but enough that Clint didn’t feel the need to scream at the doctor quite so badly.

“Talk about slapping a bandage over it,” Clint grumbled. Banner chuckled before going serious and pulling a chair up close to Clint so he could look him in the eyes.

“I need to tell you some stuff that might be hard to hear. Are you ready for it?” he asked.

“Go ahead, you can’t make things much worse.”

“The drugs have been corroding your reproductive system. At this point, you’re infertile. Much longer, and you’ll be incapable of getting an erection. If we put you back on the suppressants with this level of hormones in your body, it will fry your brain. You’ll go into shock and fall into a coma. The chances you’ll come out of the coma are slim, and you’ll probably have limited mobility if you do.”

That was all pretty depressing. Not that Clint had ever really thought about having kids, but it was nice to have options. And he was pretty attached to the use of his cock, even if the suppressants made it difficult to get off. He still liked to know that it worked. And –fuck– being a vegetable didn’t sound like a best-case-scenario at all. Clint tried to clear his throat, tried to think with his muddled brain, but everything was too hot and too fast.

“C’mon, doc, don’t I have any options?” Clint asked, and just barely managed to keep the begging tone from his voice. There was a pause then, like the doctor was rolling something over in his head. He looked into Clint’s eyes, and Clint wouldn’t let himself look away because that would be cowardly. Pretty much all Clint had left was his balls, working or not. But whatever Banner was looking for, he must have found it in Clint’s eyes, because he began to type rapidly on his computer and finally gave Clint a smile that looked somewhat sincere.

“You have one option, and you’re not going to like it.”

“Anything that doesn’t end in me being a vegetable sounds good.”

“We’re going to let you experience this heat, with two of our agents to help you through it.”

“Anything but that.”

“I’m sorry, but it’s the only option left to you at this time.”

                “It’s not a fucking option because it won’t work! You could have teams of twelve pulling round the clock shifts in my ass, it’s still not going to be enough!”

                “Actually, you only need one agent for the biologic normalization. But I’m assuming he’ll want his partner there to help keep you steady, and the extra pheromones won’t hurt.”

                “This is fucking ridiculous. If you’re going to kill me, at least have the balls to shoot me in the face. It’s way preferable to being raped to death.”

                “Listen,” Banner said, and it was the first time I’d heard him actually getting annoyed. Which was pretty good, for how much of an asshole I was being. “I know your ass is aching, but sticking your head in it isn’t going to help,” he snarled.

                “Heh,” he chuckled. Just the image was so ridiculous that it set him to laughing, and soon after Banner joined in with him, and suddenly all the tension bled out of the room. What the hell? Clint thought, even if the guy was going to pump him for information or let him die an excruciating death, at least the doctor was funny. Clint appreciated smartasses, being one himself.

                “Look,” Banner said after they’d both finished chuckling. “I don’t think I’m explaining this very well. When you go on suppressants, it stops your body from going into heat. Now heat is a natural phenomenon that omegas go through when their body is low on sexual hormones. This can happen because you’re stressed, because you’re ready to reproduce, or because you haven’t been getting enough sex. It has been proven that omegas in stable, sexually healthy relationships go through less heat cycles, because their body is being constantly supplied with sexual hormones from their alpha partner. On the suppressants, your body never realizes that you’re low on alpha hormones, so it refuses to accept any when you have sex with an alpha. When you come off the suppressants, you need such a high dose of hormones that your body can’t process the small doses of hormones that you get from each alpha partner and it keeps your body in heat cycle even as your body is flooded with alpha hormones. Between being staved and flooded with hormones, it’s only a wonder that your reproductive organs haven’t shut down already.”

                “So can you just… I don’t know… give me a shot of alpha hormones or something?”

                “Ignoring the literally thousands of alphas we’d need to milk to get enough hormones to stabilize your body, alpha hormones degrade within seconds of being removed from the host.”

                “Shit. So I’m fucked.”

                “Listen to me,” Banner said, seeing through Clint’s snark and banter to the guy underneath that was scared fucking shitless. He turned Clint so that they were eye to eye. The feel of his skin on Clint’s face, even the lukewarm, unassuming skin of a beta, sent shivers down his spine and a spike of lust through his core. Clint did his best not to groan, but leaned into the touch anyway. “Listen,” Bruce called once again, and finally Clint met his warm, brown gaze. “I’m telling you that you’re going to be alright. That it’s going to be hard, but we’re going to fix you and everything’s going to be okay. Okay?”

                And it was the first time in a very long time, that Clint let himself feel any kind of hope.

                “Okay.”


	3. Chapter 3

It took an hour for Bruce to get everything arranged. Shield was nice enough to take off one of his handcuffs despite his questionable status, but they left him with two carefully chosen beta guards to supervise him in the lab. One hand was still attached to the chair leg, but at least he could scratch his nose now. Not that Clint blamed them, considering all the mischief he could get up to with just the chemicals he could see. Let alone what was stashed in the back.

                Of course, the ache in his middle and the overwhelming urge to fuck himself on something – _anything_ \- was pretty much enough to keep him from trying any stupid escape plans. Actually, if he planned on trying something, it would probably be borderline suicidal. But the doctor had given him a sliver of hope, and Clint clung to it with both hands.

                They set up a fan before they let Banner’s friend in. Clint had expected it to blow in his face, grabbing alpha pheromones and throwing them directly in his face without putting any of his omega pheromones into his interrogator. It was a strategy he’d seen used many times, and it was pretty effective if the omega was weak willed. It probably wouldn’t work on Clint, but it would speed up the heat cycle and give him a nasty headache. Strangely, though, they set up the fan beside Clint instead of in front of him, so that when Banner’s friend was admitted and sat across from him, the wind blew both of their pheromones to the other side of the room. Clint was grateful, but tried not to let it show.

                The man who met with him was an alpha. It was as clear cut as his tailored suit and twice as flashy. He smiled, the kind of smile that was used to winning people over, and walked to the desk opposite of Clint. His attitude rankled with Clint, all the pride and expectations of an alpha, but he grew hard anyway, his body desperate to be filled. The alpha opened a briefcase and pulled out some paperwork, pulling a silver pen out of his pocket, placing it on the table before turning his attention to Clint.

                “Hi, in case you live under a rock and don’t know me, I’m Tony Stark,” the man said, holding out a hand for Clint to shake. Tony Stark. The name was familiar. American, like Clint. A genius and an alpha, he’d had the run of the world since his parents had died and left him rich and unsupervised. He’d had some trouble with an arms dealer about a year back, escaped in a handmade weaponized suit, and made a lot of trouble for Clint by no longer producing the weapons that Clint was supposed to steal. Clint couldn’t think of an alpha he had less in common with.

But Clint didn’t have to like the guy to get fucked by him. After a moment of deliberation, Clint grasped the alpha’s hand and tried to ignore the electric shock of hot alpha skin against his own.  Spoiled or not, the man was alpha enough to make your mouth water.

                “Barton. Clint Barton,” he replied, and shook Tony’s hand firmly, ignoring the omega impulse to pull the hand to him and rub his cheek against it.

                “Nice grip,” Tony complimented, giving a cheeky grin. Clint yanked his hand back, trying to crush the part of him that preened at the compliment. Damn hormones, Clint thought viciously.

                “So, let’s cut to business,” Tony said, taking a seat across from Clint. “My good friend Dr. Banner tells me you’re in need of some serious alpha pheromones, and I happen to have more than I know what to do with. So my associate and I are volunteering to help you through your heat. Because of the medical issues you’re facing, you’ll need to sign a liability waiver as well as the standard paperwork putting your wellbeing into our care. Any other stipulations you want can be added before you sign, but these are non-negotiable if you want to work with us.”

                It took a moment for Clint to process that Tony was saying. When he did, his reaction was to snarl, “What the fuck are you talking about?”

                Which left Tony blinking in response.

                “What do you mean?”

                “What is this? All this… bullshit paperwork.”

                “It’s copulation negotiations. You know, standard procedure when an omega is going into heat? With your health problems, I can’t risk not having a liability agreement. Otherwise, I thought a verbal agreement would be fine, but if you want I can have my PA send us down a written contract for that as well. Your call.”

                “My… dude, are you shittin’ me? Like any of this bullshit is going to do shit when you’re fucking me!” Clint screamed, and that, at least, made Tony pause. He contemplated Clint for a moment, like he couldn’t quite make out what he was seeing.

                “Do you want me to leave?” he asked then, and the abrupt turn in demeanor made Clint nearly dizzy.

                “Would you, if I asked?” he replied, panting and pulling on the cuffs that held him to the chair. He was feeling trapped, and his wrist was nearly bloody from it.

                “Yes. You’d die a humiliating, excruciating death, but if you’d prefer that to sleeping with me… Well, that would make you completely insane, because I am amazing in bed and I actually come with references. But whatever. It’s your call.”

                “So… You’ll just… I’m not buying it,” Clint argued, and blamed the fever for his logic being compromised to the point that he had almost, almost thought this guy was being honest. But everyone had a price, an interest. Even Tony. Even Banner. Especially Shield. And Clint couldn’t let himself forget that. “Shield isn’t just going to let me go. They have some kind of purpose here, or I’d already be dead.”

                “I have no idea what the guys at SHEILD want with you. I can’t guarantee they won’t try to get information out of you or press charges or try to recruit you or dress you in girls’ clothing once this is done. All I can tell you is that as long as you’re with me, as long as you’re an omega in heat under my care, you’re safe.”

                “Never safe,” Clint mumbled, then bit his own lip until it bled. Damn his omega hormones!

                “Stop that,” Stark commanded, and Clint tried to tell himself that he was going to quit anyway. Stark approached with a silk handkerchief from somewhere in his million dollar suit, dabbing the blood away from Clint’s lip. Clint almost felt bad for getting blood on something that was obviously worth more than his entire wardrobe. Instead, he let his eyes slip half closed and basked in the feeling of being taken care of by an alpha.

                “You’re really in a bad way, aren’t you?” Tony soothed, his knuckles ghosting across Clint’s cheek.

                “Don’t act like you fucking care,” Clint snarled and forced himself to pull away from the touch. Tony let him, where most alphas would have pulled his face back and forced the touch on him. Tony’s fingers stayed where they were, just inches from Clint’s cheek, offering their touch and nothing more.  It was crueler, in the long run, because not pressing his face back against those fingers and asking for forgiveness was the hardest thing he’d done in a long time. Eventually, Tony’s hand fell away, and Clint counted it as a small, empty victory.

                “No one’s been kind to you in a long time,” Tony told him, and Clint would have argued if his head wasn’t swimming. Natasha was kind to him, in her cold, over-protective way. Banner had been kind to him, although Clint suspected he was kind to everyone. And SHIELD hadn’t killed him outright, so that was something of a kindness.

                But prior to that, Clint was hard-pressed to remember a kind person or action that didn’t have an ulterior motive. And Clint wasn’t about to believe that this rich, spoiled, snobby alpha was an more interested in Clint outside of what Clint could do for his cock.

                “Are we gonna chat here all day, or are you gonna fuck me better over that desk?” Clint asked, and it surprised a bark of laughter out of Tony.

                “Eager, aren’t we? But I’m not going to fuck you over the desk, as much fun as that would be. Bruce has told me that this heat is going to be a struggle. And that we might need… reinforcements.”

“Fuck. I didn’t think getting in my ass was going to be a military maneuver.”

“Yeah, well, if you knew my lover, you’d know how fun those maneuvers can be. I don’t suppose you’ve heard of Steve? I need your permission for him to join us.”

Steve Rogers. Captain America. He and the Iron Man fought side-by-side for SHIELD, and there was even a scandalous rumor that the two were lovers. Two of the world’s strongest alphas wasting their genetics on each other instead of breeding with suitable omegas. Most people thought it was a waste.

                Clint should have known that. Natasha would have remembered it and used it to her advantage. But even without the smell of Tony’s pheromones, Clint’s head was getting hazy. His body was feverishly hot and it was taking all of his will not to put his forehead on the cool table surface and beg to be fucked. Maybe then Tony would shut up.

                “Fine, yes, party in my ass, whatever. Can we just get it on?” Clint asked, and tried to make it sound more like snark than begging.

“Soon,” Tony soothed. “I wanna get you out of here first. It could take weeks for you to get enough alpha pheromones. So SHIELD has agreed to release you into my custody, so you can serve out your sentence in my luxury apartments.”

                Clint choked. Weeks? Fucking weeks?! His last heat had been just days of fevered, frenzied sex, and it had almost killed him. He wouldn’t survive this.

                There wasn’t enough air in the room. Clint panted, gasping, his shackled hand clutching at the chair leg and his free hand grasping at the table as the room spun. All the blood was in his cock, there wasn’t enough left for him to think. He felt his stomach lurch, looked around desperately for a bin, and had to knock his chair over to get one before the contents of his stomach came back up. He managed to get most of it into the trash. He felt dizzy and finally let his head rest against the floor for a moment before the guards pulled him back up, relentless.

                Banner was there then, and Stark wasn’t. Clint thought he might have passed out, but he caught the shadow of Stark’s back disappearing through a doorway.

                “Take it easy,” Banner was saying, wiping his forehead with a damp cloth. “Let’s give it a moment and try again. Your body is ramping things up faster than I had imagined.”

                “Sorry,” Clint said, because he didn’t have a snappy comeback ready.

                “It’s not your fault. If anything, it’s Tony’s. He should know better than to touch you like that.”

                “I was trying to be compassionate!” came a somewhat distorted voice through an overhead speaker. Clint hadn’t even noticed it before, although he had been aware that there was monitoring equipment in the room.

                “Compassionate and stupid aren’t the same thing. You let your hormones take over,” Banner chided in his subtle way.

                “See if you can get him to sign the waiver,” Tony replied, and it was as close to admitting Brice was right as the playboy was likely to get. “Then I’ll come in and talk to him about his boundaries.”

                The intercom cut out, and Banner bent down to Clint, who was still just barely holding his head up.

                “Clint?” came Bruce’s soft, calming voice. “You’ve met him now, met Tony and seen what he has to offer. Do you still want to go through with this? You still have a choice,” Bruce offered.

                “I’ll die.”

                “I didn’t say it was a good choice,” Bruce replied, a sardonic smile on his face. But the offer was important to Clint, the fact that he wasn’t being forced into it. So instead of dragging his feet, he decided to grab the bull by the horns.

                Or the alpha by the cock.

                “Can you help me?” Clint asked, since his hands were shaking too hard to properly grasp the pen. Banner helped him patiently, putting the pen in his hand and holding his wrist while he signed. When Clint had signed several papers, Bruce eased him back in the seat and let him rest for a moment while he tidied the papers, before he let Tony come back in. After several minutes, Bruce asked, “Are you ready?” and then let Tony back in when Clint nodded.

                “Alright, sorry about that,” Tony said, and his face was genuine. Clint had wondered, for a moment, if Tony had tried to push him into a frenzy. But now Clint was wondering if the pheromones were getting to Tony despite the fan. The alpha pheromones were certainly starting to get to him, even in the marge room. 

                “It was the touch,” Bruce warned, still hovering. “Keep your distance and try to make this fast. I’m going to give him something for the nausea and then I’m going to give you two some space.”

                There was an injection involved with fixing Clint’s nausea, and Clint stared very hard to Tony’s designer shoes, not because he was afraid of needles but had good reason to mistrust their contents. Bruce was quick with the shot, giving the injection without fuss and with minimal pain, then retreating to the other room. Clint wasn’t naïve enough to think that Bruce wasn’t watching from the other room, but that knowledge was a bit comforting.

                “Alright,” Tony said, clapping his hands. “Expedite. Can do. So, before the pheromones get the better of us despite this,” Tony made a derisive noise, poking at the revolving fan, “crafty piece of technology right here. What was the back-up plan, some intern with a paper fan?”

                “The back-up plan has you fucking me by now,” Clint snipped, but it lacked heat.

                “Good plan, but we need to get some pleasantries out of the way first. So, while we’re both still clear-headed, what are your boundaries? What do you need for us to do or avoid?”

                Most alphas didn’t like boundaries with their omega. They wanted to do what they wanted, when they wanted. They didn’t want to be told no.

                But… Tony had already agreed to take him, hadn’t he? And he’d definitely asked. Was it a trap? Was he asking this so that he could use it against Clint later?

                Clint’s head hurt. His head hurt, and his body was telling him to do whatever Tony wanted, anything to get him to fuck him. How long were they going to torture him? How long would they make him wait?

                “Clint?” came Tony’s voice, soft this time and closer than it had been. “I need information. I need to know what you like, what you don’t like. I can’t move forward without specs. I can’t start a project without instructions.” It made sense, in a twisted, scientific way. “Just give me something, some boundaries so I can color inside the lines.”

                Clint couldn’t think. Couldn’t lie, even. And Tony was waiting for an answer. Maybe if he got one, they could go fuck. Maybe Tony could make him stop feeling like he was about to come apart at the seams.

                “Don’t-“

                Clint tried hard not to think about the last time he’d been off his suppressants. Tried not to think about what had happened, what might happen again soon. But every moment that his body moved closer to a true heat, those memories resurfaced.

                “Don’t-“

                Clint could remember the cold and the dark. He couldn’t remember who fucked him, couldn’t remember their faces or their smells. But he could remember the bite of handcuff on his wrists, could remember trying to twist to escape the pain and coming up against his damn hands and wondering if he could just break them and free himself. He had broken them, badly enough that they’d had to heal for several weeks before he could pull the bow again, and he’d always have to adjust for the scare tissue. But he hadn’t gotten free, he hadn’t been able to stop them.

                “Don’t restrain me,” Clint asked. Stark nodded sagely and said none of the protests that Clint had expected.

                “How restrained are we talking here?”

                “Huh?”

                “I mean, if I hold your hand, are you going to freak out?”

                “No- just… just no handcuffs or ropes or zip ties or…”

                “I think I get the picture. Anything else?”

                “I don’t like to be yelled at,” Clint admitted. Tony huffed, and Clint didn’t know him well enough to read that particular sound, but he assumed it was negative. “You can hit me, though. I’m pretty sturdy.”

                “No!” Tony snapped, then laughed to cover it. “Fuck, no. It’s okay. We’re not going to yell at you, or hit you, or tie you up unless you ask really nicely. Come on. I’m done with this. Let’s get out of here.”

                “More than willing to go,” Clint replied, rattling his chains.

                “Hang on, let me get Agent in here to release you,” Tony replied fiddling with his phone. In a moment, Agent Coulson entered, keys jangling enticingly in his hand. He released Clint, not bothering to glance at Tony as he said, “I hope you know what you’re doing, Stark. If he escapes, it’s on your head.”

                “No offense, but I don’t think he’s in any shape to escape Iron Man right now. Plus, he’s on foot and without weapons.”  
                “Don’t underestimate him,” Coulson warned, and Clint was at least a little grateful that someone knew what he was capable of, even if it was the guy who wanted to let him die. “Just because he’s an omega, that doesn’t make him any less dangerous.”

                “I think he’ll behave,” Tony quipped. “I mean, literally, he needs my cock. So I don’t think he’ll be going too far for a while. Toodles!”


	4. Chapter 4

They rode in separate cars, which was probably wise. Clint’s driver was a nice beta who tried to make small talk and felt that Clint needed to be reassured in a rather patronizing manner. Clint curled up in the back seat and tried to sleep while spasms ran through his lower body, and watched Tony’s taillights weave around the traffic.

The inside of Stark Tower was nicer than Clint had expected. Just as expensive and modern as he had thought, but it had a lived-in feel that Clint liked. Clint tried to gain his bearings as  Tony took him directly to a bedroom- not the master bedroom, the smell of alpha wasn’t strong enough to imply that- but a posh bedroom with a massive bed that was situated on the floor.

                “You’re not the first omega we’ve serviced under strange conditions. In a minute here, we’ll bring in Steve and get down to business.”

                “Please,” Clint begged, and fell more than sat on the bed. The ache between his legs had intensified from a dull throbbing to a searing pain, and the temptation to lay back and open his thighs was almost too much. Clint moaned and clutched at the coverlet as another spasm wracked his abdomen. The pain took him to his side, and he slipped from the bed.

                “That’s why it’s on the floor,” Tony teased, and then he was there, helping Clint back to the bed. His hands were warm and his scent of intoxicating, and Clint forgot all about the pain in his body and the ache in his middle. He bent toward Tony, trying to get closer, gasping like a drowning man. It smelled like steel and motor oil and wild grass, and Clint couldn’t get enough. Tony’s hand was on his arm and Clint leaned his face against it, breathing the scent. His tongue snaked out, tasting the hot flesh, relishing the taste of salt and the heady taste of alpha the bled from Tony’s every pore.

                “Pull it back,” Tony cautioned, and drew his hand away. The rejection stung, and Clint resisted the temptation to curl into a miserable ball. Instead, he snarled, jerking away from Tony.

                “Is this all a game? Did you bring me here just to torment me? Don’t fuck with my head, you bastard!” he hissed, because shouting would have put too much stress on his tender diaphragm.

                “Calm down,” Tony growled, and it was a tone that only an alpha could take. Clint hated it, but his temper immediately cooled. “I’m not playing with you. I wouldn’t do that, and you’ll get what you need soon. I just thought you’d want a shower before we start.”

                Which, Clint conceded, was logical. He was, after all, covered in sweat, blood, and dirt from his captivity, his interrogation, and his capture with SHIELD. But Clint didn’t particularly want to be logical.

                “You could have just fucking said something,” Clint snarled, disobeying all his omega instincts. He stood, tipping dangerously for a moment, but Tony let him steady himself, which Clint was grateful for. The heats were bad, but what Clint hated the most was the feeling of being helpless and needy in front of another person.

                “Through that door,” Tony pointed, then flopped onto the bed where Clint had vacated. There was a palm-sized computer in his hand, and Clint wasn’t sure if he’d been so delirious that he’d missed seeing it, or if Tony managed to magically hide them on his person. Without asking, Clint left to bathe.

                In the other room, Clint felt a moment of severe dizziness as the smell of Tony faded. His heart rate jumped in a panic, but he kept himself from going back to make sure Tony was still there. When he’d calmed himself, he turned to the shower, located the switch for the hot water on a high-tech computer monitor in the wall, and turned the shower on as hot as it could go.

                As the room filled with steam, Clint took off his clothes. He still had the willpower left to fold them neatly and hide them in the cupboard under the sink, in case he needed to make a quick exit. Next he peeled off the forgotten heating pad that Dr. Banner had given him and tossed it in the trash. There was an unopened toothbrush in the cabinet and Clint helped himself to it, washing the taste of vomit from his mouth and savoring the crisp, minty taste of the toothpaste, one of the many luxuries he’d been denied while held by the terrorists.  

When he finished with his teeth, he took a moment to look into the mirror. Clint was struck by how many scars and burns crisscrossed his skin, and how ill-proportioned he was for an omega. He could almost catalogue all the battles he’d been in from the mark on his skin, and it staggered him. He felt old and worn all of a sudden, like he’d been used up all that was left was this shell. It was an unfamiliar feeling for him, because he had always before grabbed life by both hands and tried to find the fun in it. But years of soul-wrenching service for goals that were not his own had bled him dry. There was no softness left in him at all, nothing but rigid muscle and bone. So why would two of the most gorgeous alphas on the planet take an interest in him?

                “Sir,” came a vaguely British-sounding voice over an unseen intercom, “might I suggest a milder temperature for the water? I can reset it to the optimal temperature based on my readings of your body heat.”

                “Who the fuck are you?” Clint growled, his head throbbing again, the dizziness coming in spells, “and how do you have readings of my body heat?”

                “I’m Jarvis, the Artificial Intelligence system for the house. I have sensors and other monitoring equipment all over the house, to protect members of the household. Mr. Stark has asked me to look after you and make sure you don’t do anything to endanger yourself.”

                “Including resetting the water temperature.”

                “Mr. Stark has recently completed the ill-advised endeavor to connect the boiler system to his arch-reactor coolant system. The water is currently at 220 degrees and rising. I will lower it to a more acceptable level.”

                “Oh. Thanks,” Clint said, the anger bleeding out of him. Clint blamed it on the hormones, but he couldn’t even feel mad that Tony hadn’t told him about the robotic Peeping Tom that was Stark Tower. Not that being mad would have changed anything.

When Clint stepped into the shower a moment later he found that the temperature was nearly perfect. He took a moment to bask in the hot water running over him, before the itch of grime on his sensitized skin became too much and he set to work. He scrubbed himself clinically, barely remembering to be gentle on his bruises and abrasions. Several places started bleeding, and the water ran pink for several minutes before the bleeding ebbed.

When he was finally clean of smoke and debris, smelling like apples and feeling much less dirty, Clint let himself relax under the shower. The hot water soothed his sore and fatigued muscles, the heat of the shower making some of the cramps in his stomach relax. Clint sighed and mused for a moment about staying in the shower forever. He knew it wouldn’t work, that eventually the spasms would return and force him from the shower, but he cherished these few moments of feeling normal again. Clint rested his forehead against the shower wall and let his eyes slip shut. After a moment, his knees gave out and he sank to the floor, just letting the water rain down on him. Time slipped through his fingers, and he found himself dozing, curled naked in the bottom of the shower.

It was only when the shower door was eventually pulled open that he roused, glancing up to see Tony looking amused.

                “You know, this place has a near endless supply of hot water, but I think you’ve had enough,” Tony said, and the water turned off automatically at his words. Clint just nodded mutely, too exhausted to be impressed. His mind was finally shutting down as the tension drained from him and left him spent and pliable. He let Tony draw him from the shower, his body clumsy and awkward. He slipped, his feet twisted in a bathmat, and Tony caught him gently, pulling him close. There was something hard under Tony’s shirt, and Clint fingered it curiously. He could glimpse a light shining from it through Tony’s top, and felt that it was vaguely circular and metallic.

                “You’ll see that soon enough,” Tony cautioned, pulling Clint’s hands away. “That’s a piece of technology that I designed myself, and it keeps my heart from being punctured by scraps of metal.”

                Clint nodded silently, having seen enough corpses with shrapnel wounds to understand what kind of damage flying debris could do.

                “Must make a killer nightlight.” Clint joked, then bit his lip nervously. Most alphas didn’t like a mouthy omega, but Tony threw back his head and laughed.

                “It used to keep me up at night,” Tony replied, taking Clint’s chin in his hand. “And then Steve started sleeping with his hand over it, and now it doesn’t bother me so much.”

                “What’s it made of?”

                “Not to brag, but it’s actually an element that I created. The original technology and casing I invented when I was being held hostage, not to mention the first draft of my suit.”

                Clint whistled appreciatively.

                “I’m always a fan of alphas who can perform under pressure,” Clint quipped, and it made Tony grin.

                “Let me show you some performing,” Tony offered, and seized Clint’s lips in a kiss that made his knees go weak, and he probably would have fallen if Tony hadn’t been holding him. Not that falling to the floor would have been a bad idea, considering that Clint would have presented his ass, which was now leaking and desperate to be filled. The feel of Tony’s lips on his and Tony’s hard alpha body against his chest was sending a message directly to Clint’s groin, and Clint’s cock was so hard it must have been stabbing Tony in the thigh. Although from what Clint could feel on his hip, Tony was equally affected.  Clint moaned as Tony broke the kiss.

                “I wanted to taste you,” Tony admitted, “before Steve gets here and steals all my thunder.”

                “Will you fuck me now?”  Clint asked breathlessly.

                “Soon. Let me get Captain Spangly Pants and we’ll get started,” Tony said, his fingers ghosting down Clint’s back, to his entrance. They probed gently and Clint shuddered with pleasure, moaning piteously when they were retracted. “Yeah, you’re ready. Let’s go get our star attraction.”


	5. Chapter 5

                Clint was splayed on the bed when the door open. Face-up, because he wasn’t so far gone that he would turn his back on these virtual strangers. That would come soon, when the smell of pheromones hit him. He would be at his breaking point then, begging and thrashing and promising anything. But for the moment he kept enough alertness to be nervous when the door opened.

                 The smell hit him first, more than Steve’s perfect physique. The overwhelming scent of pheromones, enough for a dozen alphas, contained and concentrated in one chagrined-looking blonde man. The rest of the sight hit him next, from the finally sculpted muscles to the thick, proud cock jutting from a nest of golden curls. Clint swallowed as he saw Steve’s knot flair minutely as Steve stepped in and scented the room, his body reacting naturally to the presence of an omega in full heat.

                “You could have introduced us first,” Steve protested.

                “He’s too far into it. You’d have overwhelmed him immediately,” Tony called from somewhere outside the room. From the sound of ice cubes and glass colliding, he was probably in the kitchen.

                “Still, this isn’t the way I wanted to start this,” Steve protested, and Clint could tell already that he was a bit of a traditionalist, someone who liked to court his omega and seduce him before the heat hit. But that wasn’t an option for them, and Clint wasn’t sure he’d have wanted the long, drawn-out, romantic crap anyway.

                “Please!” Clint moaned piteously, just barely keeping himself from throwing his legs wide open. “I need it so bad it hurts!” he begged, and it was the perfect tactic to get to Steve. In a moment, the blonde man was in the bed, cradling the archer in his arms.

                “It’s alright,” Steve soothed, “I’ve got what you need. I’ll give it to you, calm down.”

                Steve’s hands were big, with familiar calluses from holding weapons. It spoke to something primal in Clint, that this man had seen field action and would know how to protect him if someone attacked while they were mating. It calmed the part of Clint’s mind that was still nervous about being so vulnerable to near-strangers, while another part of Clint became almost frantic to finally get fucked by an alpha that might be a superior fighter. Clint moaned again, hiding his face in Steve’s bicep and hoping it would be enough to make the man start.

                “He’s playing you,” Tony cautioned unhelpfully from the doorway. He was naked as well, slimmer than Steve but just as nicely proportioned. His cock was long and elegant, nestled in a patch of tastefully trimmed dark curls, with just a hint of knot peaking in front of Tony’s heavy testicles. But Clint found his eyes drawn to the circular mechanism in Tony’s chest, the same one he’d felt earlier in the bathroom. Uncovered, it glowed with a dull blue light and was surrounded by tiny, puckered shrapnel scars. Clint gave a shiver of sympathy, remembering how many times he’d come close to having the same scars himself, but with no technology to save him from the burrowing pieces of metal.

                “I know he is,” Steve replied, and it took Clint a moment to catch back up to the conversation. “But that doesn’t mean he isn’t hurting. We’re going to get to the same place, so why wouldn’t I go along with it?” Steve asked. It took a moment for Clint to realize, then, that he was the one being played.

                “Hey!” he huffed, but it lacked enthusiasm. He was too interested in getting fucked to be worried about how or why they did it.

                “Don’t you start either,” Steve warned, but the words were undermined by the soothing hand Steve laid on Clint’s cheek. “I need to be able to trust that you’re being honest with me about what you need, understand?” he asked, and it was in a commander’s voice more than an alpha’s, but it had about the same effect. Clint nodded, his gaze locked on those deep blue eyes. “Then I’m going to ask you what you need, and I want you to be honest, alright? How do you want to do this?” he asked, and Clint thought for a moment before answering, trying to get his head past the hormones and to what he really wanted.

                “From the front, at first. Until I get used to it, until I’m so into it that I can’t think straight. Then I’ll want to turn around so you can pound it into me. Can I have that?”

                “Sure thing, kid,” Steve replied, and there was a smile on his face that even Clint found charming. He leaned down slowly, giving Clint time to retreat if he chose to, but Clint was more than ready. He met Steve’s kiss with an intensity that made the other man grunt, their lips pressing together so quickly that their clashed teeth, but that was how Clint liked it. Intense, and a little dangerous. Steve’s kiss was like water in a desert, and Clint drank it down. A small part of his mind whispered that it was probably the pheromones already doing their work, infiltrating his mind and body. But he sighed into the kiss anyway, trying to enjoy the feeling of it as long as he could.

                “I’m feeling a little left out,” Tony complained, crossing the room to the bed.

                The movement set off alarm bells in Clint’s head. He tensed, because having two alphas in the same room as an omega in heat almost always led to violence, and there was a good chance Clint would get caught in the crossfire. He flinched as Tony moved to sit beside him on the bed, expecting Steve to try to exert dominance, but Steve just smiled as Tony settled beside them.

                “Relax,” Steve soothed. “We’re not going to fight over you.”

                “Yeah,” Tony grinned. “Watch how well we get along,” he said, then kissed Steve square on the mouth.

                It screamed wrong on so many different levels. Two males, two alphas, and especially two guys who were supposed to be fucking him, were fucking around with each other. It was strange, because both of them were dominant, giving out alpha pheromones and taking on the kiss like it was some kind of battle. They were really getting into it, with Tony taking the lead and even slipping his tongue into Steve’s mouth.  And it was weird, because there probably weren’t two people less likely to get along, or with less similar backgrounds, and yet Clint watched Steve’s index finger trace Tony’s reactor in a practiced move that made Tony shiver. But, most importantly, it was making Clint fucking horny. His legs opened of their own accord, one thigh slipping over each of their legs until he was splayed wide between them, his hips bucking and his cock jutting and begging for attention.

                “That’s fucking hot,” was out of Clint’s mouth before he could stop it, and of all the things he’d done today, that slip made him blush. Steve smiled and Tony laughed outright.

                “Glad you think so,” Tony laughed. “Usually we charge for that kind of show, but for you we’ll call it community service.”

                “Why don’t you show me how you service the community?” Clint quipped back, and Tony grinned before taking Clint’s face in his hands and sharing a kiss of their own while Steve slipped a finger into Clint’s wet and gaping hole.  

                It made fireworks go off behind Clint’s eyes, and he moaned against Tony’s lips. When the kiss finally broke, Clint was panting, but he managed to rasp, “I think I’m gonna like it here.”

                “Good,” Tony replied, nibbling on his ear as Steve slipped another finger inside. “Because Steve and I don’t share our toys with just anyone.”

                “Tony,” Steve growled, and it took Clint a moment to realize that Steve was offended by Tony calling him a toy. Which Clint would have also been offended by, had he actually been listening. “For Pete’s sake, you’re in a mood today,” Steve berated.

                “Sorry, seeing you with an omega gets me all riled up. Can’t help it. I’m hard wired that way,” Tony defended.

                “I can’t take you two having a spat right now,” Clint growled. “Can we please focus on the fact that my cock could cut diamonds and you could park a bulldozer in my ass?”

                “Yeah,” Steve said, pushing Tony to the side so that he could settle between Clint’s thighs. The sight of it was almost more than Clint could take and he moaned, wrapping his legs around Steve’s thighs, trying to force him inside. “Alright, easy,” Steve cautioned. “I’m putting it in.”

                The first invasion was always the worst of it for Clint. The first press of a cock against his hole always made him want to lash out. He was used being by himself, caring for himself, and having no one’s hands on him but his own. To let someone, literally, get inside him was an almost painful change to the solitary archer. He hated lowering his defenses, or having his defenses forcibly lowered, enough to get an alpha close enough to mate him. The only person he trusted was Natasha, and she was an omega as well. And even though his mind knew that these two alphas were different, were trying to help him, his instinct told him that letting people close to him meant pain, even as his body promised that keeping them away would end in suffering as well.

                So when Steve pressed his cock against Clint’s hole, Clint reacted badly.


	6. Chapter 6

                The only thing that saved Steve from a broken nose was his superhuman reflexes. Steve, proving his super soldier abilities, managed not only to catch the foot midair that was flying for his face, but also to intercept the wild fist that went out in Tony’s direction. The three froze, with Steve holding a foot in his left hand only inches from his face and a fist in his right hand that would have connected solidly with Tony’s abdomen, and with Clint sprawled out on the bed looking nearly as bewildered as the other two.

                “Oh shit!” came out of Clint’s mouth, and his mind was so frenzied that his mouth caught in a loop, and the same two words began to repeat over and over.

                “Clint,” Tony called gently, taking Steve’s hand away from Clint’s fist. Tony tried to hold Clint’s hand, both to calm him and to ensure that he couldn’t lash out again, but the appendage refused to relax.

                “It’s okay,” Steve soothed, lowering Clint’s foot back to the bed and pulling his cock away from the panicking omega’s entrance. “Calm down.”

                But Clint’s eyes were glassy, staring at nothing. His lips moved over the same curse, barely a whisper, like he couldn’t hear it himself. A sweat broke out over his body, his frame trembling as he tried to ground himself. But to no avail.

                “Should we call Bruce?” Steve asked.

                “What good would that do?” Tony snipped.

                “I don’t know, maybe he can give Clint something to calm him down so we can try again.”

                “The only thing he needs is in your cock!”

                “Well I can’t have sex with him like this! He’s catatonic, for chrissake!”

                “If he’s bottoming out on pheromones, there’s nothing Bruce can do…”

                “Please,” Clint begged over the arguing pair. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean…” but the heat wouldn’t let him lie. “I won’t do that again. You can do whatever you want. I’ll turn over and you can pretend I’m him. Just don’t send me back. Please.”

                “No one’s sending you back,” Steve assured, turning Clint’s face to make Clint look at him. Clint wouldn’t meet his eyes, though, and there was still a glassy look to them and a pallor to his skin that Steve didn’t like. Steve hadn’t expected Clint’s crisis point to come this soon, hadn’t been prepared for such need and desperation. It made him ache with empathy.

                “Let me get behind him,” Tony offered softly. Steve glanced at him, because it wasn’t very often that he got to see such seriousness in the Stark heir. There were very few things that brought out the true alpha in Tony, but an omega in need was one of the few.

                “I can’t…” Clint started, but his trembling took a turn for the worse and he had to pause. “I can’t handle you both… yet… probably later…” he offered, but Tony was already slipping behind him, lifting him and moving the omega’s pliant body, and Clint’s brain couldn’t keep up. “No!” he yelped, turning too fast for the Cap to stop and pinning Tony to the bed. Clint looked around desperately for a weapon of any kind, but there wasn’t even a bedside lamp for him to use as a bludgeon. Without his clothes or any of his weapons, Clint felt helpless and… well… naked.

                “Take it easy,” Tony said, his hands held passively at the sides as Clint gripped his shoulders. Somehow, even pinned beneath a frenzied omega, Tony managed to look unperturbed. In the face of Tony’s obvious passivity, Clint’s aggression began to feel a bit out of line. His arms were shaking just as hard as the rest of him, and eventually his grip failed him and he crumbled against Tony’s chest.

                Clint expected Tony to grab for him, to pin him so that Steve could mount him. But, instead, Tony’s hands ghosted along Clint’s sides as he murmured soothing words. Clint gasped for air, breathing in the scent of the alpha beneath him, feeling the warm skin against his own. Of its own volition, his body began to relax.

                “We’re not going to hurt you,” Tony soothed. “You have to believe that.”

                “I know your body feels out of control right now,” came Steve’s voice from behind, not trying to move closer or mount, just hovering protectively over the pair. “I know it feels like your skin’s about to come off, like something’s burrowing through your core. But fighting against us is only going to make it worse. It’s a lot to ask of you, to trust us both so fully when you hardly know us. But that’s the only way this is going to work.”

                “Okay,” Clint panted. “Okay, just give me a minute.”

                “Take your time,” Tony said, his hand becoming more persistent, rubbing up and down Clint’s sides in a way that made the omega want to purr. The scent of alpha was making his body relax and the shaking lessen. The spasms in his belly were starting to subside, leaving just an empty ache. “Let this wave pass over.” Tony’s thigh was between Clint’s legs, giving Clint pressure and friction against his aching cock. After a moment, Tony reached between them and took Clint’s cock in his hand, gripping it firmly against his own shaft and caressing them both. Clint thrust his hips wantonly, forgetting that Steve was behind him until the blonde alpha groaned.

                “That’s some show,” Steve whispered, swallowing audibly as Clint thrust again, his ass bared as he undulated on Tony’s leg, his hole presented and dripping for Steve. It was almost more than Steve could take, to see the heat-induced frenzied undulations of Clint’s hips, Tony underneath fisting their cocks.

                “I can’t take you both at once,” Clint tried again, feeling his brain starting to muddle with hormones. “Later, I’ve done two at once when I’m fully open.” He could remember more than one alpha being in him the last time he was in heat. He couldn’t really say how many there had been, only that it felt like half a dozen cocks inside him, stretching him until he was sure he’d tear in two.

                “We’re not both going to fuck you,” Tony said, and there was an exasperated tone that Clint could hear even though he could tell that the alpha was trying to be patient. “Trust me, Steve will be more than enough for you.

                “Then what…”

                “What am I doing?” Tony asked with a sly smile. “I’m keeping you distracted. See, Steve’s going to take you, and you’re going to keep staring into my eyes so you don’t panic. Alright?”

                “I’m not going to panic,” Clint protested, but it sounded weak even to his own ears.

                “Not if you keep gazing at these lovely brown eyes. Steve? Buddy, is there a problem back there?”

                “What? Oh, yeah,” Steve stammered, moving to his knees behind Clint. Tony chuckled, his hand coming up to stroke Clint’s cheek.

                “Didn’t expect you to be sleepin’ on the job, Cap,” Tony teased.

                “You two are pretty distracting,” Steve countered, his fingers settling on Clint’s hips, his thumbs teasing the skin at the crease of Clint’s thighs. Clint moaned, his cock jumping in Tony’s hand, and raised his hips for Steve, his head pillowed on Tony’s chest. He heard the rumbling chuckled reverberate against his ear. He found the strength to raise his head to look at Tony, and found his lips captured in a searing kiss. Teeth clashed, and after a moment Clint opened his mouth to Tony’s onslaught, with Tony’s tongue darting in to tease him before slipping back out just as quickly. It was enough to keep Clint distracted as Steve moved up behind him and put his cock against Clint’s hole.

                “You ready?” Steve asked, and Tony groaned against his lips before breaking the kiss.

                “What part of, ‘I’m going to distract him’ did you miss?”

                “I don’t think surprising him would be a good idea, especially considering how he reacted last time.”  
                “You know what? You just can’t let me make a plan. That’s your problem, you know, you can’t…”

                “Tony, shut the fuck up!”

                Everything in the room went silent for a moment as the two alphas stared at the omega between them. If Clint had been able, he’d have stared at himself. After a moment, he blushed scarlet and stuttered, “Sorry. Jeeze, Tony, I’m so sorry man. I just… I’m really… Can you just… you know… let him stick it in me? Because I’m so fucking close right now that I can’t take it.”

                “It’s okay,” Steve soothed. “We know you’re high-strung right now. We’re not mad, right Tony?”

                “Are you kidding? I just got told off by an omega in the middle of his heat. That’s awesome! You, sir, are one badass omega!”

                Clint couldn’t help the thrill of pride that ran through him at Tony’s praise, a shameless grin plastered on the alpha’s face.

                “I don’t need you two bonding over feats of testosterone. Next you’ll be daring each other to jump off the helicarrier,” Steve complained, but the tone was amused. “Are you ready, Clint? I don’t want you to get surprised by another wave.”

                “I’m more than ready.”

                And with that, Steve gave a first, shallow thrust against Clint’s hole. Clint’s body seemed to absorb Steve’s cock, pulling it in and making the both of them groan in satisfaction as Steve settled inside, his half-inflated knot pressed against the outside of Clint’s entrance.


	7. Chapter 7

Clint moaned, feeling like he could suddenly breath again. His heart calmed, the ache in his body subsiding, the gaping, gnawing sense of emptiness filling up with Steve’s cock. Clint cried out as Steve thrust shallowly, Clint’s cock jumping in Tony’s hand.

“Makes me half wish I was an omega,” Tony teased, nibbling at the corner of Clint’s jaw. “Seeing Steve with you, driving you out of your mind.”

                “You’re not doing so badly yourself,” Clint protested as Tony continued to stroke their cocks together, savoring the feeling of the hot, soft skin of the alpha’s cock against his own. “You’re pretty good at that.”

                Tony just grinned, taking a moment to stroke the head of Clint’s cock as Steve continued to give shallow thrusts into Clint’s body. The dual assault almost undid the omega, who was teetering on the edge anyway.

                “This isn’t my first cockfight, if you know what I mean. Not to brag, but I’ve probably handled enough cocks to constitute a flock.”

                “I bet you’re a regular Old McDonald,” Clint teased, but it sounded lame to his own ears. Steve laughed, though, the throaty chuckle vibrating against Clint’s back.

                “I got that one,” Steve bragged. “Because he had a farm, right?”

                “Yes, Steve, that’s the joke,” Tony teased, and it might have deteriorated into another snit, but Clint felt another surge of heat and moaned, thrusting back against Steve’s cock.

                “Fuck, all this talk about animals has really got me turned on. Makes me wanna get fucked like one, ya know?” Clint said, his words slurring slightly, his mind foggy with pleasure. Steve made a choking noise behind him, stumbling over his thrusts, and Clint realized how that must have sounded to an alpha from the 1940s.   

                “I just keep putting my foot in my mouth,” Clint sighed, laying his head on Tony’s shoulder. “I’m used to circus folk and terrorists. Sorry, I’ll watch my mouth.”

                “No, it’s not…” Steve protested, but Tony cut him off with a quiet laugh.

                “Go on,” Tony cut in as Steve stuttered to a halt. “Curse your fucking heart out.” He licked the shell of Clint’s ear, whispering, “In the 40’s omegas were never crude during sex. It wasn’t becoming. Now, it’s one of Steve’s bigger kinks.”

                Clint laughed at the absurdity of it all.

                “If you wanted an omega to curse for you, you came to the right damn place.”

                “It’s not the cursing,” Steve denied, and Clint tossed a glance over his shoulder to see Steve blushing and looking bashful. “It’s the… I don’t know… Letting loose, you know? Not having any reservations or caring what anyone thinks. I find that really alluring.”

                “Trust me,” Clint replied, thrusting his hips back against Steve’s cock. “I wouldn’t give a shit if the Pope and a roomful of nuns were watching us. All I care about is that damn cock of yours. Now fuck me!” Clint demanded, and Tony barked in laughter beneath him.

                “Pushy little thing, isn’t he?” Tony mused, and then pulled Clint into another searing kiss as Steve began thrusting more quickly, fucking Clint in a steady, determined rhythm.

                “You’re driving me fucking crazy!” Clint moaned, thrusting his hips at Tony’s fist. Tony didn’t increase his speed, though, keeping the strokes deliberately, teasingly slow and firm. It wasn’t a vindictive action. Clint and Tony both knew they no amount of stimulation would let Clint come before his alpha. And, while many omegas could orgasm just from feeling their alpha coming inside them, Clint knew that he would need to be knotted before he could achieve an orgasm.

                But Clint, and he wanted to blame the hormones for this, was starting to think that orgasm would never come. Steve’s thrusts were more rapid now, nearly frantic at times, but he didn’t seem to be any closer to fulfillment than when they started. And Steve’s knot, which Clint could feel brush against his tender opening, was still only half filled. Clint moaned, thrusting back against Steve, but it only aggravated the alpha, who pinned his hips against Tony’s. There were more desperate thrusts, more moans from Clint, and an desperate noise from Steve before the thrusts ground to a halt.

                “Tony,” Steve cried. “Tony, please, I need you!” Steve begged, his thrusts turning nearly frantic as he pounded Clint, but not showing any signs of nearing orgasm. Clint would have been worried about the alpha if he’d bad any brain cells not focused on his own approaching orgasm.

                “I’m coming, baby, I’ve got what you need,” Tony soothed, and Clint whined in protest as Tony stopped stroking his dick and slipped out from underneath him.

                “Tony!” Clint protested, fumbling to stroke his own cock, his hands too uncoordinated to grasp his shaft.

                “Turn around for me,” came Steve’s voice in his ear. Steve pulled his shaft from Clint’s body, and for an agonizing second Clint thought that Steve might be leaving him, might be toying with him. But Steve didn’t pull away, just pressed Clint to turn onto his back, lifting Clint’s legs and thrusting home as soon as Clint was facing him. Clint hissed softly, groaned as Steve took Clint’s cock in hand, giving several tentative strokes at first, then quickly growing more confident. Clint moaned his appreciation.

                Clint lost track of what Tony was doing as his mind focused on the feel of Steve’s cock in his ass and hand on his dick. Clint was barely conscious of Tony moving behind Steve.

                “How do you want it?” came Tony’s soft voice, and Clint let the alpha’s soft voice flow over him, not conscious enough to interpret the words.

                “Deep,” Steve hissed, plowing into Clint and then holding him close, his cock still buried in the omega.

                “You want my knot?” Tony asked, but Clint could feel Steve shake his head against Clint’s shoulder.

                Wait, Clint thought, what?

                “No, not with a third person. I want to be loose in case something happens with him.”

                “Whatever you want, love. You ready?”

                “More than ready.”

                And then Tony was surging against Steve, and Clint could almost feel the ripples of pleasure passing through Steve, could tell the moment Tony breached the other alpha from moan Steve gave. A moan that, until now, Clint had thought only omegas knew how to give. But still Tony pressed forward, and Steve allowed it, allowed Tony to penetrate him in a way that alphas never did. 

When Tony had fully seated himself in Steve’s body, the three of them stilled. Clint surged forward, taking Steve’s face in his hands and looking deep into his expressive blue eyes. There was uncertainty there and even a small amount of embarrassment, but the love Steve had for Tony made the alpha gaze back unflinchingly.

                “When I’m not so messed up on pheromones,” Clint said, his voice raw from moaning and strained with lust. “You’re going to tell me what the hell this is all about.” Steve nodded gravely, and Clint smiled. “Until then, though, you’re going to fuck the shit out of me, got it?” Clint asked, and now it was Steve’s turn to smile.

                “Can do, soldier.”

                And then Steve thrust forward, and there were matching groans of satisfaction from the two bottoming men. Tony, on his knees behind them, surveyed the two wonton men beneath him and laughed.

                “God, sometimes I love being me,” Tony said gleefully. Steve and Clint shared an eye-roll.

                “Shut up, Tony,” Steve growled.

                “Make me,” Tony dared back, causing Steve to thrust his hips back so forcefully that Tony let out a strangled groan and stopped talking. Then Steve surged forward, making Clint curse with pleasure. And no sooner was he fully seated in Clint when Tony snagged his hips, jerking him back and thrusting his own cock home again. It fell into a rhythm then, with Steve as the pendulum swinging between his alpha boyfriend and his omega lover.

                They were close, all of them. Steve sped up his pace, tilting his hips in the way that he knew would drive Tony over the edge. He only had to wait a few seconds for it to have the desired effect, and Tony came hard with a strangled sound, thrusting into Steve so hard that he fell onto Clint. The feel of Tony orgasming inside him pushed Steve over the edge, and he wrapped himself around Clint, burying his cock inside, pressing until his knot breached the omega’s tight body. Clint screamed, his body opening nearly impossibly wide to absorb Steve’s knot as the blonde alpha reached completion, shooting his hot seed into the receptive omega.

                And then, finally, Clint managed to come, fucking Steve’s fist and shooting great streams of come all over the alpha above him. The oargasm hit him like a freight train. He thought he screamed, and he knew he saw spots.

                And then he blacked out.


	8. Chapter 8

 

                When Clint woke, it was to Steve curled against his back and Tony missing. Clint was up on his elbow before he realized he was moving, looking around for the missing alpha.

                “He’s in the shower,” came a sleepy voice from behind him. “He’ll be back,” Steve assured, pulling Clint gently back to the bed. Clint hesitated, unused to this aspect of heat. When he had been conscious during his last heat, he’d almost always been in desperate need, being filled by at least one alpha. Now, though, he was at least half sated, with his cock only taking a vague interest, and his exhaustion rating much higher on the priority list than sex.

He let Steve pull him down and settle him on the blonde alpha’s arm, allowed the alpha to wrap his leg over Clint’s hips, even though it would make escape nearly impossible if Clint needed to run. Despite this, Clint felt content instead of entrapped, and blamed it on his hormones that he was beginning to trust these two alphas already. He tried to scold himself, tried to remember that these two were only here for the sex, and even then only because a friend had asked on his behalf. He knew if he couldn’t get his head wrapped around the fact the Steve and Tony only cared about each other, that they were going to dump him back on SHEILD when all this was over, that he would be devastated when it happened. He could only hope that as the hormones faded and his heat cycle ended, he’d come to his senses.

“Tony ordered us take-out before he went. Do you like Italian? Bruce said to make sure you get plenty of carbs. He left some vitamins for you, too.”

Steve was stroking his hair now, gently with the tips of his fingers. Clint didn’t know what to do. Should he reciprocate? Would that seem… forced? Should he offer sex? He wasn’t used to seducing alphas, and he was so tired. His hormones had calmed for a moment, and he just wanted to rest and eat before the next wave hit him.              

“I… like Italian,” Clint replied. His stomach chose that moment to rumble loudly, making Steve chuckle and pull him closer.

“It’s really good Italian,” Steve assured, and Clint was content to let him fill the silence, and found the soft treble of Steve’s voice soothing. “Tony got it for me when we first started to date. I almost had a fit when I found out how much it cost, but Tony wouldn’t hear of letting me pay him back. He’s kind of traditional like that, sometimes. Even though he gets into his projects sometimes and forgets how long he’s been there, he tries his best to keep me happy. He’s… he’s a good alpha.”

                “And what the fuck are you?” came out of Clint’s mouth before he could stop it. He stopped dead, horrified at himself. “No, Steve, I’m so sorry! I didn’t mean…”

                “It’s okay,” Steve said, and it was with the patient tone of voice that Clint knew he’d perfected with Tony. Clint could read body language better than voices, and Steve’s was pretty easy to read. The alpha hadn’t made a move to push him away or to move away from him, and they were really too close for Steve to hide it. If anything, Steve held him tighter, although he did let Clint turn to look at him. “I knew it would come up. I would have told you about it before we… coupled, but there wasn’t time. Do you know anything about my history? About how I became Captain America?”

                “What, you think I lived in a box or something? Everybody knows the story of Captain America. How they were doing gamma tests on betas and ended up turning you into the ultimate alpha.”

                Steve blushed, but powered through with a practiced ease.

                “Yeah, that’s all pretty accurate, but I wasn’t a beta. I was an omega.”

                Clint whistled at the implications.

“Experiments on omegas in the ‘40s? Omegas in the army?”

                “I don’t have to tell you what it would have meant to have this kind of information revealed, not just to the image of Captain America, but to the American government as well.

                “So… this thing with Tony? Is he your alpha? Are you an alpha and omega both? Do you always bottom for Tony or... should I shut my damn mouth before I ask any more horribly personal questions?”

                “No, no, it’s fine. It’s… It’s actually a bit of a relief to talk about. Tony is fine letting me claim to be an alpha, and for all intents I am. But my mind remembers being an omega, and it translates into my interpretation of sex. We…” and here, Steve blushed scarlet, and Clint felt a little bad for the man, but it seemed like Steve needed to talk about it. Clint was glad to be able to do something for him, even if it was just to listen. “We… have sex together, and he tops me. Sometimes, we take care of omegas in heat, but that’s rare… and usually in extreme circumstances. From a physical standpoint, I’m completely an alpha. I can knot omegas, and I don’t get heat cycles like I did when I was an omega. But… I still want… what I did when I was an omega. I love it when Tony treats me like an omega. Tony is everything I would have wanted in an alpha. And… I know it’s a mental hang-up, but it’s difficult to orgasm without Tony inside me.”

                “That’s…”

                “You don’t have to say anything. I know it’s…”

                “…pretty awesome.”

                “What?”

                “You get the best of both worlds. A great alpha who takes care of you and all the sex without the requirement of heat? That’s pretty awesome. I mean, you get to be whatever you want. There aren’t a lot of alphas that would love you no matter what you looked like, even if you aren’t the right dynamic for them.”

                “When you put it like that,” Steve said, still rolling the idea around in his head, “I guess it does sound pretty nice.”

                “You’ve got it made!” Clint told him, stretching back against the plush pillows on the extravagant bed. “Look at the alpha you bagged! Rich, handsome, and let’s not forget extremely wealthy!”

                Which was, of course, when Tony decided to come back in, just in time to get offended.

                “Hey!” he called, still toweling himself dry from the shower, completely immodest about his nudity. “Don’t forget genius! I am more than just pretty and rich, you know.”

                He threw his damp form across the bed, laying across Steve and Clint’s legs and grinning unrepentantly.

                “Don’t brag,” Steve scolded. “It’s unbecoming.”

                “Yeah!” Clint agreed, sticking his tongue out.

                “And you, don’t antagonize him!” Steve turned, exasperated. “Thank goodness I don’t have children, you two are as bad as kids!”

                “You gonna spank us like kids?” Tony asked, raising his eyebrows suggestively.

                “You’re being ridiculous,” Steve huffed. “Now if the paste isn’t here yet, I’m gonna take Clint for a quick shower.”

                “I would have waited if I’d known that!” Tony pouted.

                “So you could try to grope him while we’re in the shower, which is why I didn’t tell you,” Steve replied, getting to his feet. “And since you’re clean already, you can change the sheets while we’re gone.”

                Steve held out a hand to Clint while Tony grumbled half-heartedly. Clint found himself being pulled unsteadily to his feet, leaning heavily against Steve, who took his weight with ease. The shower had somehow become familiar already, even though he’d only used it once, and Clint felt a strange sense of relaxing routine as he stumbled into the shower, the perfect temperature water cascading over him without any effort on his part.

                “Thank you, Jarvis,” Steve commented, and Clint didn’t even think it was strange that Steve treated the AI like a person. Sliding in behind him, Steve had already soaped the sponge and started washing Clint’s back before Clint had managed the will to move.

                “I can get that,” Clint offered, but it was a token attempt, because he really wasn’t sure he could.

                “I think this is part of my alpha prerogative,” Steve teased.

                “Whatever. Feels too good to fight.”

                “It’s something I remember from being an omega,” Steve offered, and it seemed like now that he’d spilled his secret, the memories kept coming. “I was too sick to have an alpha, but I did have a couple heats. Most of it was pretty annoying since I was alone, but I remember that I loved a warm bath so much more when I was in heat. We didn’t have a shower, but I’d warm a huge pot of water on the stove and just stay in the bath all afternoon.”

                Clint didn’t know what to say to that. He’d been in a lot of places where they didn’t have indoor plumbing, and it never seemed that important to him. His last heats had been so brutal that he hardly remembered cleaning up after them as he tried to blank them from his mind.

                But Steve didn’t seem to mind the silence, the slow strokes of his sponge never wavering. Clint wasn’t sure he’d ever felt so calm, especially as Steve started to hum softly behind him. Bracing himself against the wall, Clint found himself nodding off. It wasn’t until another strong set of arms joined Steve’s to help guide Clint out of the shower that Clint realized he’d been asleep on his feet.

                “Sorry,” Clint stuttered, and Tony laughed as he warped a towel around the omega.

                “We’d probably be a little more offended if we weren’t the ones that had exhausted you in the first place.”

                “Still…” Clint slurred, his sluggish brain having a hard time keeping up. “Shouldn’t have…”

                “It’s alright,” Steve soothed. “You just need to eat. When’s the last time you ate?”

                “I don’t… Couple days maybe…”

                “Fuck,” Tony cursed, taking Clint’s weight and helping to steady him as Steve slipped out of a shower and wrapped himself in a towel. “I didn’t think SHEILD was that tough. Jarvis might be checking in to their human rights violations later tonight.”

                “It wasn’t SHEILD. I was only with them for a day, maybe less.”

                “That’s good to know,” said Steve, using another towel to dry Clint off, but Clint was just too tired to protest.

                “I don’t know why I’m so tired. Usually I’m…”

                “Desperate?” Tony added helpfully. “That would be because you’re actually getting the alpha pheromones that your body needs, and it’s trying to shut down to readjust.”

                “Is it… How much longer will I feel like this?” Clint asked as he shuffled, naked but now dry into the bedroom, where gourmet Italian cuisine was nestled in decorative takeout boxes and splayed across the bed.

                “It’s hard to say. The bouts of lethargy will probably come and go, based on what Banner’s told me, but actual heat could last a couple weeks.”

                “Great,” Clint replied dryly. He grabbed a spot on the mattress and started in on dinner. He knew he should enjoy his dinner, he’d probably never have the chance to eat food this expensive again, but he was so tired that he could barely manage to chew and swallow. He hardly noticed the flavor. He didn’t notice himself slipping to sleep, his dinner half-finished in his lap. And he totally missed when Steve caught his fork as it slipped from his fingers, or Tony took his dish away before it slipped from his lap. Indulgently, the two alphas settled their omega, and finished their dinner.


	9. Chapter 9

                Clint woke to the feeling of someone kissing his collarbone and up to his shoulder. It was a wholly unfathomable feeling, something he had never experienced before. It took several moments for him to even realize what was happening, and he kept his eyes closed and his breathing even in case he was under attack. It was so out of his realm of experience, in fact, that his fingers twitched, looking for the blade he usually kept under his pillow. He tensed as the kisses reached his neck and almost panicked, thinking that the person might be getting ready to bite his jugular. But even he knew that was crazy.

                “Tony, leave him alone,” Steve called, and the familiar voice helped Clint ground himself. It helped, too, that Tony lifted his head to reply, his kisses never quite reaching Clint’s throat.

                “I can’t!” Tony whined. “He’s got me so horny with those omega pheromones.”

                “You’ll live,” Steve assured, pulling Tony away.

                “We don’t know that for sure. Scientific data has proved that alphas with unsatisfactory sex lives have a shorter life expectancy than alphas who have more sex.”

                “Oh yeah? Did they also do a scientific study to prove that you’re full of shit?”

                “They don’t test things that are obvious, Steve. That’d be a waste of funds.”

                “Uh-huh. And you don’t know a thing about wasting money, do you?”

                “You keep riding my ass like this,” Tony said, and Clint felt the bed shift as he crawled over to Steve. “And I’ll start thinking you’re so messed up on omega pheromones that you’re ready to fuck me.”

                Clint opened his eyes until they were slits, just enough to see Tony and Steve, but not enough for them to notice he was awake.

                Not that they were about to notice anything. Steve had a lap full of Tony, and they were locking lips in such a way that they might have been battling rather than kissing. Tony was naked, his hips undulating against Steve as the other man left fingerprints in Tony’s hips. Their cocks rubbed and slipped against each other, their half-swollen knots and testicles nestled against each other. After a moment, Tony moaned, throwing his head back and arching away from Steve. But Steve had a firm grip on Tony and snapped his hips against Tony’s, jerking him back down to the bed.

                It was so fucking sexy, Clint found himself moaning, his own cock hard against his belly.

                “Uh-oh,” Steve said against Tony’s ear. “Looks like someone’s awake.”

                “Oh yeah?” Tony replied. “He might have to pry me off of you. I’m having a pretty good time where I am.”

                “’S okay,” Clint slurred, his half-awake brain trying to keep up with his mouth. “I’ve got a great seat.”

                “I usually charge for this kind of show,” Tony quipped seamlessly, then turned in Steve’s grip. His legs fell open across Steve’s as Tony turned, pressing his back against Steve’s chest. It gave Clint a great view of Tony’s cock; long, thick, and engorged with blood, making it almost a deep red color. At the base was his knot, partially inflated and seated just above Tony’s heavy testicles, which had been shaved neatly of all their hair, revealing the smooth folds of the alpha’s skin.

                Clint licked his lips, his mouth going dry at the sight. “That sucks, because I’m flat broke.”

                “I’ll comp it this time, write it off as a tax deduction. You think sexual favors fall under community service or social donations?”

                “I think,” cut in Steve, “that you should stop worrying about it.” And then Steve bit Tony’s shoulder hard enough to make him moan and forget about his banter. When Steve finished, there was a red welt on Tony’s shoulder, and the alpha was panting and stroking his cock.

                “That’s cheating.” Tony pouted. “You know how turned on I get when you bite me.”

                “That’s the point.”

                By this time, Clint’s hand had found his own cock, and he stroked it languidly, knowing that he’d never be satisfied by it but unable to stop himself.

                “You want some help with that?” Tony asked, and Clint noticed that the alpha was staring at Clint’s hand as it slipped over his own slim, unknotted cock. Trying to suppress a grin, Clint slid his hand from the tip of his shaft, down the length, to grasp his lightly-haired testicles. He took his scrotum in his hand, gently pulling on the skin and shivered as a spot of precum gathered at the crown. When Tony leaned down and licked it off the tip, Clint gasped and arched his back, his hips bucking instinctively. Tony licked his lips and smiled, before sucking Clint’s length into his mouth.

                Clint gave a shout, his hips thrusting again but Tony had anticipated that and moved with Clint’s hips. When Clint settled, Tony licked his way down the shaft, then wrapped his lips around the head. Clint had done this particular maneuver on a lot of alphas when he was in heat and there was already one alpha in his ass and a line of them waiting for the first alpha to finish. He’d also seen other omegas do it to each other, when one omega was in heat and waiting for an alpha to come. But he’d never had it done to him, and he’d never heard of an alpha doing it when there was no competition for the omega.

                But when did Tony Stark ever play by the rules? And from the way it felt, Clint could only hope that he never did.

                Tony sucked him down to the root, rocking back against Steve as he did. Clint and Steve moaned in unison as Tony handled them both at the same time. Grinding his cock against Tony’s ass without penetrating him, Steve leaned over Tony’s shoulder and watched him suck the omega. Clint hissed as Tony swallowed him, but there was something about Steve’s expression that caught Clint’s eye.

                “How’s he taste?” Steve asked.

                “Like fucking candy,” Tony responded, and Clint whined at the loss of Tony’s mouth on his cock.

                “Better than me?” Steve asked, and Clint could hear the jealous omega territoriality in the alpha’s voice. It made him wonder how much of Steve’s sexuality was mental, if he was still showing such obvious omega behavior.

                “Different,” Tony replied, and for once in his life he was smart enough not to give a cocky retort. Instead, he reached up and took Steve’s face in his hand, leading the blonde alpha down for a deep kiss. When Steve licked his lips as they parted, Clint realized that Tony had shared his taste with Steve, nullifying Steve’s territoriality by making Clint a part of their shared territory. Steve moaned, thrusting wantonly against Tony again.

“You want to have a go at my ass today?” Tony asked, wiggling expectantly. Steve looked pained, and shook his head.

                “I’m too hyped on pheromones,” Steve replied disappointedly. “You’re body’s not built for this, and I won’t risk hurting you because I can’t wait. But I do want you to suck me off, and I want you to fuck him while you do it.”

                “My, aren’t we specific tonight,” Tony quipped, but he was already repositioning, putting Clint on his back and crawling over him.

                Clint shivered, a brief flash of trepidation filling him. Despite all that they’d done, this was the first time Tony would actually mount him. And, while Clint had no fears that Tony would mistreat him, he was still a little nervous to submit to the playboy billionaire. After all, Tony regularly had sex with Captain America. How could Clint compare?

                “Look at you,” Tony said, hovering and staring at Clint. It made Clint feel like he was being analyzed, like Tony could see the sum of all his parts. Clint’s scars were laid out like a roadmap across his body, his muscles and his calluses proved that he’d done things that omegas weren’t supposed to do, things that made him ashamed of himself. Clint had the paranoid suspicion that Tony could read every one of those scars, that his AI had looked them all up and was even now whispering to Tony all the horrible things Clint had done.

                The instinct was there to bolt; or -worse yet- to hide behind Steve, because Steve had been protective of him and stereotypically alpha. But Steve wasn’t a normal alpha, and Clint wouldn’t be a normal omega, no matter how much Tony Stark intimidated him or how much his body begged him to pander and be good.

                “What of it?” Clint snarled, his hands gripping Tony’s arms with bruising force, his fingers biting into Tony’s flesh. But Tony just grinned in that asshole smirk of his and never even flinched at Clint’s hold.

                “You’re gorgeous,” Tony said, and the words were so earnest that they made Clint pause. But Clint wasn’t ready to hear that, and snarled at the un-intimidated alpha.

                “Don’t make fun of me, Stark,” Clint hissed. He was enraged, and horny, and sick, and feverish, and so far gone that he didn’t even notice the trickle of blood that dripped down Tony’s arms from where Clint’s claws had bit into Tony’s flesh.

                “Be careful,” Steve warned from behind them, but made no move to intervene. Tony didn’t even glance his way.

                “He needs to hear this,” Tony said, his eyes never leaving Clint’s form.

                “Hear what?” Clint snapped. “Whatever it is, I can handle it.”

                Tony chuckled. “And that is why you are perfect. You don’t take shit from anybody.”

                “That’s… That’s not supposed to be attractive,” Clint countered, but he was so surprised that it was a bit feeble.

                “Says who?” Tony replied, “I think it’s sexy as fuck that you don’t give a shit what I think, or what anybody thinks. You’re strong, you’re independent, you kick ass-… You’re everything I was looking for when I found Steve.”

                “That’s… That’s sort of really sweet.”

                “Trust me,” Steve put in, “this is absolutely the epitome of his romanticism.”

                “It’s kinda hot.”

                “Damn right,” Steve growled, latching his teeth onto Tony’s shoulder.

                “Fuck!” Tony snarled, then leaned down to take Clint’s lips in a kiss. As their lips met, Clint felt Tony’s cock slip inside him, splitting him as Tony slid home. Clint moaned into Tony’s mouth, thrusting his hips to encourage the alpha.

                “Don’t forget about me,” Steve protested, pulling Tony back for a kiss.

                “Like I could,” Tony protested, but moved Clint to lay on his belly before leaning over and taking Steve’s cock into his mouth. The three of them moaned in unison, their bodies undulating against each other. Tony swallowed down Steve’s cock to the knot with practiced ease, Steve’s fingers carding through the other alpha’s hair. Clint thrust back against Tony, the slow, distracted thrusts of his hips not satisfying the desperate ache inside of the omega. Clint watched as Tony sucked on Steve’s cock, but he could see that Tony was struggling. The angle Tony was at and his own instinct to thrust into the omega beneath him were warring with his willingness to satisfy Steve, and Steve wasn’t going to be satisfied with a half performance.

                “Let me?” Clint asked, and his mouth began watering at the possibility of having yet another alpha cock inside of him. Tony and Steve exchanged a look, then Steve nodded and Tony retreated. They repositioned more comfortably, with Tony behind and Clint’s head in Steve’s lap. Clint came face-to-face, so to speak, with Steve’s cock. The omega swallowed it eagerly, basking in the scent and the smell of the alpha in front of him. Steve moaned and pushed his fingers into Clint’s hair, but was too much of a gentleman to force Clint’s head down. Instead, he twined his fingers in Clint’s hair and hung on, guiding Clint just slightly but never forcing him down. Clint was grateful, because as eager as he as to suck Steve’s cock, even the slightest bit of force would have thrown him into memories of less considerate alphas.

                Behind him, Tony had found his pace, pounding into Clint’s ass with the rhythm of a drummer, making Clint moan around Steve’s cock. Tony’s fingers clutched Clint’s hips, snapping Clint onto his cock with every thrust. Eventually, Steve’s hands trailed down Clint’s face and settled on his shoulders, helping to hold him still for Tony to thrust into. With Steve holding onto Clint, Tony’s hands began to trail all over Clint’s body, skimming down over Clint’s hips and down his legs. They moved for a moment to Clint’s shoulder’s, where he laid his hands over Steve’s and locked eyes with his partner. Then Clint felt the hands trail down his back. When the fingertips began to trace the scars on his back, he stuttered to a halt.

                “Don’t,” Clint protested, Steve’s cock falling free of his mouth. Tony gave him a perplexed look.

                “Don’t what?”

                “Don’t… Don’t look at that,” Clint asked, ducking his head. There were scars all over his back, some small, some larger, some that had been treated and healed nicely, others that had been ignored and festered. “I’d really rather we pretended they weren’t there.”

                Tony hesitated for a moment, his fingers still lying on what Clint remembered as a particularly gruesome knife wound that he’d been dealt years earlier. He hesitated, then leaned over Clint’s prove form.

                “Okay,” Tony agreed, then gently kissed the wound before pulling his hand away. “But I think they make you look beautiful.”

Clint hesitated a moment, rolling that around in his mind to see if he could find a flaw, then let it go. “You’re weird,” he responded, but he wasn’t interested in arguing, and pulled Steve’s cock back into his mouth. Still, when Tony’s hands slipped over his back again, Clint didn’t protest, and Tony didn’t linger.

Clint could taste Steve on his tongue now, the salty flavor of an alpha nearing completion. It was an intoxicating flavor, and it made Clint almost frenzied for more. He swallowed Steve’s thick shaft down to his knot, but even he wasn’t frenzied enough to try and choke that down. Steve snarled, his hands clutching at Clint’s hair, holding him still as his body ejaculated down Clint’s throat. It was the first time Clint had seen the Captain lose control, but he swallowed the seed happily, his body craving more even as Steve’s cock slipped from his mouth.

“Sorry,” Steve apologized. “Are you alright?”

“It’ll take more than that to satisfy me,” Clint replied, his voice a bit hoarse.

“No worries,” Tony offered, then thrust so hard that Clint was knocked forward, falling to his elbows on the bed. “I’ve got plenty more.” And then he was pounding into Clint in a way that made the omega moan and thrash, thrusting back against Tony. Steve settled at Clint’s head, just watching as his lover fucked their newest omega.

“You’re so wet,” Tony praised, thrusting deep and taking a moment to mark Clint’s shoulder with a bite. Clint moaned and bucked back viciously, trying to force Tony to move inside him. Tony obliged as soon as Clint’s shoulder was a pleasing shade of purple to his alpha sensibilities, the animal inside him demanding that he mark the omega as his own. Steve moved in when Tony vacated, more gently marking the opposite shoulder as Tony and Clint rocked against him. When Clint began to moan and Tony sped up, Steve reached under the omega and grasped his smaller, unknotted cock.  With a few quick jerks, Clint shouted and came in Steve’s hand. He sagged forward, and Steve had to catch him so that Tony could finish.

“Give it to him, love,” Steve encouraged as Tony fucked Clint’s lax body. “Fuck him deep and knot him. He’ll love it.” And then Tony was coming with a shout, shoving his knot into Clint’s body. Clint felt like he would split, and when Tony finally finished Clint felt like he might burst.

And, nestled between two protective alphas and sated for the first time all week, he passed out again.


	10. Chapter 10

                When Clint woke for the second time, it was to the sound of an approaching orgasm.

                “Fuck, Tony!” and Clint was surprised to hear such colorful language from human Capsicle Steve Rogers. Maybe he was wearing off on them already. “His pheromones are like a drug! I can’t get enough!”

                “I’m not seeing a problem here,” Tony said breathlessly, and without opening his eyes Clint could tell that the Man of Iron was fucking Captain America. His own cock twitched, but he was facedown on the bed still and nowhere near ready for another round. His ass felt pleasantly loose, the kind of looseness that came with being thoroughly knotted. It was the first time he had felt that way without also being sore from being ridden too hard or too quickly. It seemed like magic that Tony and Steve had managed to fuck him just hard enough that he’d be satisfied without being in pain.

                Speaking of Steve and Tony, it sounded like the two of them were closing in on their finale. The two alphas were hovering above him, and Clint could feel the bed rock with their thrusts and feel the heat of their skin. He hardly wondered why they hadn’t moved further away, and it didn’t even dawn on him that anything was strange until Steve grunted and Clint felt a hot, wet splatter on his back. Clint made a face, but before he could even move to wipe it off Steve had begun to wipe it into his skin. Clint’s mind boggled for a moment, but he couldn’t let it go.  

                “That’s… pretty weird. Is that a kink?” He asked, turning to look at Steve.

                “What?” Steve stammered, and Clint could tell that his mind was having trouble getting through the fog of pheromones. When Steve did manage to comprehend the question, he blushed furiously and exclaimed, “No!” but he didn’t stop rubbing Clint’s skin.

                “It’s Bruce,” Tony put in, but made no move to help or stop Steve.

                “It’s Bruce’s kink?” Clint asked, because that didn’t make much sense, unless the doctor was somehow watching. Which was possible, given how high-tech Tony’s apartment was. Clint wouldn’t begrudge Bruce a show, but it would have been nice to know he’d had an audience.

                “No, Clint,” came Steve again, sounding a bit less muddled but no less embarrassed. “It’s Bruce’s orders. He said that my hormones could go through your skin, so when you get too exhausted to participate, we could…”

                “Jizz on me and rub it in with the same effect? Why didn’t we do that from the beginning?”

                “Not the same effect,” Steve corrected. “Potency is reduced by 40%, and it takes longer to get in your system. You’d be better off swallowing it, since that only reduces potency by 20%, but Bruce warned that there would probably be times that you were too exhausted even for that.”

                “It seems like I’m in for a long ride,” Clint commented dourly, but Tony cut him off.

                “This is going to be the most fun sickness you’ve ever been through. And you’re going to spend it with two hot alphas in the lap of luxury. So don’t be so gloomy about it.”

                “Let’s get you cleaned up,” Steve said gently, and it was only then that Clint felt the wetness between his legs or the stickiness on his skin.

                “I don’t think I can manage a shower,” Clint admitted, hiding his face in his arms. His legs felt like jelly, and he could feel his muscles protest every time he moved. It was even hard to hold up his head.

                “Nobody’s expecting that,” Steve assured, and Clint felt a warm cloth move over his back, wiping away the mess that Steve had left. Clint blushed despite what they’d just done when Steve moved to his ass, but pushed up to his knees nonetheless.

                “You hungry?” Tony asked as Steve helped Clint get clean. Clint wished he could help or, even better, do it himself, but he’s so exhausted that he just lays there and lets Steve take care of him. Steve doesn’t complain.

                “Thirsty,” Clint admitted, and feels weird to be asking for things. “Do you have a kitchen or…?”

                “I got it,” Tony said, and disappeared out the door.

                “Bring his vitamins,” Steve calls as the door slid shut.

                “I promise I’m not usually this much of a burden,” Clint assured, but he hasn’t the strength to prove it. His fever was gone for the moment, and it made him feel chilled all over, his skin prickling in goose bumps. Steve noticed, and pulled the comforter over Clint when he finished.

                “Don’t worry about it. Tony’s always so busy with his projects and I’ve got so much work with the Avengers initiative, we rarely have time for this kind of… bonding. It’s nice.”

                “Avengers initiative?”

                “That’s classified,” Steve told him softly, but he sounded reluctant. Still, Clint was too tired to press, and he wasn’t sure he wanted to know. He felt his eyelids grow heavy, but he fought it.

                “Sorry,” Clint apologized. “I guess I should have expected that. I’m pretty sure I’m still labeled as a terrorist.”

                “It’s not… I think Agent Coulson is trying to get that label expunged since you were coerced.”

                “Can he do that?”

                “We’re not sure yet. After all this is over, it would go a long way if you cooperated with him.”

                “Is that what all this is about?” Clint asked doubtfully. “Are you trying to bribe me into working with SHEILD?”

                “I’m not trying to do anything,” Steve defended. “I’m doing a favor for Bruce, and a favor for you. Whatever plans Agent Coulson has, they’ll wait another three weeks until your heat is over.”

                “You can’t expect me to believe that this is all just… altruism.”

                “I don’t… Clint, I don’t know what their plans are. But I believe in SHEILD, I know how they work, and I don’t believe that they’ll force you into anything you wouldn’t be comfortable with. I… I think they know that I couldn’t allow that. Not after a heat like this.”

                “Why?” Clint snapped, and he knew that he was pushing too far; he knew that his mouth was going to get him in trouble, but he just couldn’t stop. It wasn’t in his nature to stop, just like it wasn’t in his nature to be pampered or rescued. It rankled in him, and he was helpless to stop it. So he spewed abuse at the nearest target, and he knew he was doing it, and he was still helpless to stop. “Why would you care? I don’t mean shit to you. You don’t even know me.”

                “Three weeks is a long time,” Steve said softly, and contrasting to the harshness of Clint’s voice. “Especially in a heat like this. I’m not the kind of person who can be so close to another, who can go through a heat with them, and not begin to care for them. And that’s a heat that lasts a few days.”

                “So you’ll save me because I’m a good fuck and you feel sorry for me,” Clint snapped, too tired and angry and vulnerable to let it go. He finally felt the air change, felt Steve finally get pissed off. But it wasn’t Steve that answered him.

                “God damn,” came Tony’s voice from the door, “Are we gonna have a multiple personality thing to deal with too? Seriously, talk about looking a gift horse in the mouth. Or the gift alpha in the cock? And, yes Steve, that makes you the horse in this scenario.”

                Tony handed Clint the vitamins and a tumbler of water, and Clint resisted his first impulse to throw them, then thought better of it and took them, following it with a full glass of water. If Bruce had sent them, which Clint assumed he probably had, he definitely didn’t want to go without them.

                Tony touched Steve on the shoulder and gestured to the door.

                “You’re tagged out of this round, Cap. Go get some fresh air and work out some of that aggression. If you can’t even handle a couple mood swings, you’re no good to me. Hell, you’re lucky it was just a bitch out and not a full-on temper tantrum. Clear your head, I’ll sit with him.”

                “I don’t need a babysitter,” Clint growled, but Steve was already exiting, looking half-dazed, and pulling the door shut behind him.

                “Not for long,” Tony said, making himself comfortable at the end of the bed. “One of those vitamins was a sleeping pill."

                “Bastard,” Clint hissed, but the pull to sleep was already taking effect, wining over his hard-worn stubbornness. He slumped back against the bed, and he felt Tony slide until his body pressed against Clint’s.

                “I really am sorry about this. It’s just, if Steve doesn’t get a few minutes to himself, he’s gonna lose his shit. And if I don’t get to scent mark him for a bit, I’m probably gonna lost my shit. And if we leave you alone in here with nothing to do but entertain your mood swings, you’re gonna lose your shit. If you’d just quit fighting this so hard, everything would go a lot more smoothly. Can you just sit back and enjoy for a while, okay? Plenty of time to lose your shit in the next three weeks.”

                Tony stroked his fingers through Clint’s hair gently, then Clint felt him rise and leave the bed heard the door open as Tony went to find his mate. And for a moment, Clint wanted to beg for Tony to come back, and he was almost grateful that exhaustion had robbed him of his ability to move. Because an overwhelming sense of helplessness had stolen over Clint, something that he hadn’t felt since the beginning of his heat. And Clint finally had to admit that it wasn’t the security of the tower or the hope of a cure making Clint feel safe, it was the presence of Tony and Steve.

                And the click of the door closing was the last Clint heard before sleep took him, kicking and fighting and pissed as hell, into slumber.

                When Clint woke up the third time, he’d pretty much forgotten that Tony had drugged him. His mood had shifted and, while he wanted to be pissed about it, he knew that he’d been pushing his limits, maybe being a bit of a dick, and thought that they were probably equal at this point.

But his mood shifting didn’t actually mean good things for the omega. Instead of waking angry, Clint woke up terrified. Fear of being alone and abandoned assailed him, and if he’d been thinking more clearly he might have blamed it on Tony’s recent trick, but it wasn’t a fear of being abandoned immediately. It was a sudden and completely unaccountable fear that he wouldn’t be able to handle himself once the heat ended. Clint had never experienced self-doubt in this way, and it was nearly crippling to him. The idea of growing attached to these people, to anyone really, in such a way that he wouldn’t be able to function without them was as frightening to him as it was foreign. He had always been a loner, and with the sole exception of Natasha everyone he’d ever known had died or abandoned him. He didn’t know what he had to offer anyone, especially people as wealthy and amazing as Captain America and Iron Man.

Clint took a deep breath and tried to calm himself. The heat still burned within him, a dull ache in the pit of his stomach. Tony and Steve’s scents were strong, and he realized that they were surrounding him on the bed, with Tony lying across him and Steve along his other side, back against Clint’s side. He didn’t know how long he’d been asleep, but he could judge that it had been a long time from the way Steve and Tony were both deep asleep. Curled between them, the feelings of fear and abandonment faded, and Clint felt his heart rate slow. Tony’s hand was across Clint’s chest and it pulled the omega imperceptivity closer, probably reacting to the other’s distress. It was the kind of affection Clint had never known from an alpha, and he didn’t really know how to feel about it.

But he did know that he needed to do anything in his power to ensure that Steve and Tony kept him. But what did he have that a superhuman superhero and a billionaire playboy philanthropist would want? All he could think of was their affiliation with SHEILD, and the information that he had acquired. Without conscious thought, secrets began to spill from his lips, mumbled and nearly incoherent but still things that he would never have given up under torture, because the reprisals from his enemies would be swift and deadly.

                “Listen,” he tried to Tony, who was curled protectively at his side, “I know where the Russians have nukes.”      

                “Shh,” was Tony’s only response, along with stroking Clint’s hair in an attempt to sooth him back to sleep.

                “Tony,” Clint called, and Tony forced one eye to open blearily. “What I’m telling you could save lives. I just… I don’t want…”

                “Jarvis,” Tony called, softly enough that he wouldn’t wake Steve, who was sleeping on the other side of Clint. “What time is it?”

                “It is 4:53AM, sir. Ms. Potts cancelled all your meetings for the week when she was informed of your omega crisis. There is nothing on your schedule until next Tuesday.”

                “So why the fuck am I up?” Tony growled at Clint, but it lacked heat, and Clint was starting to realize that Tony barked a lot more than he bit.

                “I’m trying to tell you that I can give you information that could save people’s lives. I can tell you stuff…” but Tony was already turning over to go back to sleep.

                “If you can still tell us after the heat is over, that would be great. Otherwise I’m just going to assume that it’s hormones talking. Whichever one it is, they need to schedule an appointment between the hours of 10 and 1 to have any hope of getting my attention.”

                Clint ground his teeth, but Tony was already snoring softly.

                Clint’s next attempt targeted Steve. A couple careful prods had the Captain rolling onto his back, and it was enough for Clint to pull away from Tony and curl along Steve’s side.

                “Steve?” Clint breathed softly, ever away of the sleeping alpha on the other side of him. “Listen, I need to tell you something.”

                “I heard you with Tony,” Steve replied softly, his eyes never opening and his body giving no signs that he had been awake, except that he wrapped an arm around Clint and pulled him closer. “You don’t need to tell us anything. It’s just the heat talking.”

                “No, listen, I can be useful. I have things I can tell you…”

                “Clint…”

                “Please!” Clint hissed, desperate and beyond caring if he woke Tony again. “I can help you! I’m not a liability. You don’t have to babysit me and drug me to sleep. You can trust me. I’ll tell you anything,” he promised, his voice rising in panic and desperation. “Anything! Just, please… I can’t…” he was overwhelmed now, his breath coming in gasps as his body panicked, his mind focusing on the most valuable piece of information he contained, and the only piece he was desperate not to reveal. He’d never been brought this low by pain, not by torture or starvation or desperation. But give him a bone, give him the smallest bit of human decency, and he rolled over like a bitch. Shame coiled in his belly as panic settled in his breast. “Anything but Widow,” he sobbed, “Please, anything but her.”

                “Stop,” Steve chided gently, rising to his knees and turning on a light on the wall. He pulled Clint against him, stroking his back.

                “I didn’t mean to fight with you,” Clint whispered, but he couldn’t meet Steve’s eyes. “I don’t need you to drug me for me to behave.”

                “Ah,” Steve said, still stroking down Clint’s back. He managed to aim a kick at Tony’s thigh without dislodging the omega. “Get up, Tony, this is your mess.”

                “Wha…?” came Tony’s slurred reply, but he obediently pulled himself up. “What they hell did I do? I was asleep!”

                “You need to tell him. That was a nasty trick, and you’ve completely set him off.”

                Clint blinked owlishly at Tony.

                “What trick?”

                “The one where I said I slipped you a sleeping pill.”

                “Wait, you _said_ you slipped me a sleeping pill? Meaning?”

                “Meaning I actually slipped you a fist full of vitamins. There wasn’t any kind of sleep aid in them. I just saw you fighting so hard against it that I figured if I gave you half an excuse you’d be out like a light. Which, to be fair, I was right about.”

                “That’s… Dude, that’s a pretty jackass thing to do.”

                “Yes, I’ll admit that, but cut me some slack. We all needed a moment to breathe, only you would have panicked with a moment alone…”

                “Did panic, you asshole.”

                “…and you have to understand, Steve and I weren’t really prepared for this. I mean, it’s not the first time we’ve brought an omega through heat, but we do usually have more time to prepare. So, yeah, I know I’ve been totally screwing this up.”

                “It’… I didn’t say… Look, I’m not trying to be a dick about this. I do appreciate what you two are giving up for this.”

                “That doesn’t give Tony a right to violate your trust like that,” Steve countered, a heated glare aimed at his alpha partner. “If we want you to trust us, we need you to know that we’d never drug you simply because it’s _convenient_ ,” he said, and he spat the word like it was an expletive. “We’d never endanger your welfare by drugging you because it’s easier. Even if Tony was jackass enough to actually do that, which he isn’t, I wouldn’t let him.”

                Clint absorbed that for a moment, sitting silently and listening to Steve’s even breaths. Clint could feel that Tony was repentant, his posture and his countenance both screamed regret. Apparently, Cap had been less than pleased when he’d found out the trick Tony had played, and he must have laid in to his partner. It made Clint feel better, both that Steve cared enough to take up his cause and that Tony wasn’t so stubborn that he couldn’t admit when he was wrong. What was the point, though? Why would they bother to worry about him, when they held all the power in the relationship? There was nothing to be gained from being kind to him that they didn’t have already.

                “I don’t understand you two,” he commented softly.

                “We’re trying to fix that,” Tony responded, reaching his hand out tentatively to lay on Clint’s thigh. Clint allowed it, mostly because he was too tired to shrug it away. “Well, Steve’s trying to fix it. I’m just trying not to fuck it up too badly. I told you, I do better with machines.”

                “Sometimes I wish I was one,” Clint replied, but his eyes were slipping shut. With the panic fading, his body refused to stay awake, and he was being helplessly dragged under.

                “It’s not as fun as it sounds,” countered Tony, and somehow his voice managed to sound incredibly sad. But the how and why escaped Clint, and he was pulled into sleep.

 


	11. Chapter 11

                It was not a peaceful sleep. Despite having a slight resolution with his alphas, despite knowing that it was only his own body that was keeping him from waking up, Clint was plagued with nightmares. The heat brought back intensive memories of being helpless, but what bothered him more was the idea of Natasha being in danger. In his dreams, she was in heat as well, caught by the same drugs that had sent him into heat. But instead of wanting an alpha, she was fleeing them. Clint tried to protect her, tried to block the alphas that tried to get to her, but he was not strong enough to fight them, his blows glancing off with no effect. He bared himself to them, prostrate and open for them to fuck, but they only sneered and passed him by. When they caught Natasha, he lunged to try to separate them, but alphas grabbed him and pinned him down. He hardly noticed that they fucked him, his eyes trained on Natasha as she struggled to free herself. Her eyes came to rest on him accusingly, and he bolted awake to the sound of her screams.

                Clint spent minutes panting in the bed, taking in his surrounding s and trying to catch his breath. He was glad to find that he was alone, the wrinkled sheets on either side of him the only evidence of his previous bed partners. He laid back, running his fingers through his tangled hair and feeling the sweat on his scalp. He shivered. His body was sore like he’d run a marathon, but the sick, feverish feeling of heat had faded. He wasn’t delusional enough to think that it was gone for good, but he tried to enjoy his moment of respite and put the dream from his mind. In the light of day, he knew he had not betrayed Natasha and that she was more than capable of taking care of herself. She was safe. He focused on that thought. Whether or not he would have betrayed her if Steve and Tony had pressed him was something he tried not to think about.

                Clint laid quietly for several minutes, then rose and went to shower. Already he could feel his heat setting back in, but it was still faint and easily ignored. He came back out, towling his hair dry, still naked because no one had provided him with clothes, and wondering when Tony and Steve would come back. Wondering if they’d bring breakfast.

                And then he saw something that made him pause. It was something obvious, something that he should have noticed immediately upon waking.

                The door was open.

                It was a fact. Only a few inches ajar, it was definitely not fully closed or locked. The implications, however, were baffling. Clint immediately went rigid. His senses, which had been dulled by pheromones and luxury, became sharp as Clint tried to sense danger. Had the tower been broken into? Was a terrorist cell after him? Were Tony and Steve in trouble?

                But it didn’t feel that way. Clint had a hard time imagining anyone strong enough to sneak in and grab Iron Man and Captain America from their own home without even waking him. Clint moved to the door, crouching just behind it, and pressed his fingertips against it just enough to make it swing outward.

                The entrance in front of him was immaculate, without even a footprint to hint at trespassers. There were no signs of forced entry, and there were plenty of expensive and delicate looking pieces of artwork in the room. Clint toed the line of the threshold, peering out and looking for Tony, Steve, or a platoon of SHEILD agents. There were no signs of anyone.

                What did it mean? Did someone slip up and leave the door open? Steve and Tony had seemed stressed the other night, maybe one of them had forgotten to lock him in. Or did they plan for him to have free range of the floor? Or was this a test to see if he would break their trust? Should he stay trapped in the room and wait for Tony and Steve? Or make a break for it, even though freedom meant almost certain death?

                Clint stepped out of room. The tower had an open layout on this floor that he hadn’t been able to appreciate when he’d come in. There was a kitchen and a den in his immediate vicinity. The idea came to him to search the kitchen for a weapon, but he dismissed it. He was still weak from his heat, with another wave already starting to build, and he doubted anything he could find in the kitchen would give him an edge over Tony, Steve, or SHEILD. And the terrorists who were after him wouldn’t give him enough time to know he was in trouble before they killed him.

                Funny thing was, Clint wasn’t really interested in escape. He had a much higher interest in seeing how this played out, seeing if he could get through this heat and then seeing what SHEILD had in store for him. But the option to stretch his legs was just too tempting, and before he knew it he was padding down the hall and searching for something to wear. He found the master bedroom quickly enough and helped himself to some of Tony’s clothes, a ratty pair of jeans he found in a bottom drawer and an old Metallica tshirt that was only a little tight around his biceps. He tried not to disturb too much in the bedroom, he felt a little bad for invading Steve and Tony’s privacy.

                So where to go from there? He contemplated it from the center of the den, looking out of windows wistfully. What he wouldn’t give to feel the wind on his face. He checked the windows, but he was aware that they were twelve stories up, so he wasn’t surprised when they didn’t open. So… stairs? He doubted the AI would let him in the elevator, and he wasn’t sure he trusted the thing not to drop anyway. He’d set up too many assassinations in faulty elevators to trust them implicitly.

                But even the Stark tower had to have a set of stairs, at least for emergencies. It didn’t take too much exploring for Clint to find the stairwell under a bright red “exit” sign. He was surprised when the door opened easily, he’d expected that to at least be locked. He did a double take at the locking mechanism, but it was computerized and didn’t seem to have been tampered with. Clint could only assume that Tony didn’t expect any serious threats to get twelves stories up.

                More than doubting his luck, Clint took the stairs two at a time. Feeling like he was outrunning his demons (and knowing that they’d catch him as soon as he stopped) Clint hustled up the floors, wondering just how high this building went and what Tony was doing with all the other floors. But Clint was far more occupied by thoughts of the rooftop, and he actually shouted with joy as he hit the rooftop hatch and found himself climbing onto the top of Stark Tower.

                It was later in the day than Clint had imagined, the sun high in the sky over the city. What was normally the deafening noise of the citizens below was dulled up here, almost completely covered by the roar of the wind. Clint took a deep breath of fresh air and felt something in him relax for the first time in nearly a week. Moving languidly, Clint surveyed his surroundings. There was a helicopter on a flightpad on the extensive rooftop, but Clint couldn’t make out the design. He could only assume it was a Tony Stark original. He was half tempted to go take a look at the controls, he was pretty sure he could fly it. But he let that thought go as too tempting. If he found out he could fly it, then he’d have to decide if he wanted to. And where would he go? Back to the assholes with suppressants that would almost definitely kill him? To Natasha, wherever she was, so she could watch him wither and die? Clint was rational enough to know that his best chance of surviving was to stay where he was.

                Well, where he had been. He wasn’t sure how bad he had hurt his chances of surviving when he’d made this ill-advised bolt for freedom. He couldn’t imagine how pissed Steve and Tony would be if they caught him.

                So Clint meandered to the side of the roof, peering over the edge of the steel building. He could feel his heat building again and knew that his time on the roof was waning. But he couldn’t quite make himself go back in, even as his insides began to knot and his body broke out in a light sweat. He settled on the side of the building, his feet dangling over the edge of a sheer drop. Casting his eyes over the city, watching cars pass as small as ants and feeling the pleasant movements of the people beneath him, Clint finally felt at peace.

                “You’re not going to try to jump, are you?”

                Which did, in fact, make Clint jump, but not off the side of the building. Instead, he jerked and threw himself backwards, away from the side of the building and the rising form of Iron Man. Clint was fairly impressed, when his heart stopped trying to beat out of his chest, at how silent the Iron Man suit was. Without making a sound, Tony hovered onto the rooftop, set down the suit, and opened the faceplate to check on Clint.

                “Sorry, you alright?”

                “No! For fuck’s sake, don’t sneak up on a guy like that!”

                “I wasn’t- I was trying to be in the way in case you decided to… you know.”

                “In case I decided to what?”

                “Jump.”

                “Jump where?” Clint wasn’t being intentionally oblivious. He looked at the side of the building, wondering if there had been scaffolding or something he could climb down. A drain pipe maybe? But it seemed a little ridiculous from this height. Tony made a puzzled face.

                “Over… the… edge… which is seeming less and less likely now.”

                “Wait, wait, you thought I came up here to commit suicide? And your reaction was to scare the shit out of me? Way to go there.”

                “I was going to catch you!” Tony huffed, then pulled his helmet off and ran his hand through his hair. “One of us is atrocious at this, and I’m pretty sure it’s you.”

                Clint felt a hot stab of anger at that and surged to his feet, getting in the alpha’s face.

                “Hey, I’m not the dumb shit who forgot to lock my cell this morning! That’s on you, asshole.”

                “What cell?”

                “You know, the one I’ve been getting fucked in for the last… what? 48 hours? I’d know, but you fucks didn’t give me a window or a clock!”

                “It’s not… You’re not…” Tony fell back a step, his face growing more puzzled. “You were never locked in that room.”

                “I… what?” And now Clint fell back, his face just as confused. “But… you brought everything in there.”

                “Yeah, because we didn’t want you fucking exerting yourself in the wind up phase of your heat. It was dangerous enough to have you at the Tower and not under the supervision of a doctor. We weren’t going to risk you falling and bashing your head on something. Did we not discuss why the bed was pretty much on the floor?”

                “I don’t believe you,” Clint stated. “I know I’m a prisoner. SHEILD isn’t going to let me just walk off. Don’t pretend you’re not my fucking jailer! Don’t act like you fucking care!”

                It came out as a scream, and it startled them both. Clint’s chest was heaving, his body breaking out in a cold sweat. He knew he’d waited too long, distracted by Tony, and his heat was on him, sinking its claws into his abdomen and trying to disembowel him. He whimpered and sank to his knees. He felt slick between his legs, he knew it was soaking his borrowed jeans. He wouldn’t be able to return them, his scent would stain them. It made him whimper again, a totally irrational feeling of guilt stabbing through him, that he had stolen and ruined something from his alphas.

                Then Tony was on his knees beside Clint, petting and shushing him. Tony pulled off Clint’s shirt, ghosting his hands over Clint’s back and down his sides, pulling Clint’s face against his neck. It took a moment for Clint to process the calloused, warm skin of Tony’s hands and realize that Tony had taken the time to remove his gauntlets.

                “Need fucked,” Clint panted, just shy of begging. The smell of Tony helped take the edge of the pain, but he knew it wouldn’t be enough. Tony shook his head.

                “You don’t,” Tony corrected, his hands still rubbing over Clint’s overheated sides, trying to slow the omega’s pounding heartbeat and calm his gasping chest. “It’s not time yet, trust me, we’ve been monitoring you. It’s a false wave. You’re just panicking and your body is reacting to it. You need to calm down.”

                “I know what heat fucking feels like!” Clint snarled, but it sent another sharp stab through his body.

                “You know what a panic attack feels like? Because I know first hand that it’s an awful lot like having your guts ripped out. Just breathe, and give it a minute.”

                Clint sighed and leaned against Tony. It wasn’t like he had much of a choice. Tony was the only alpha around, and even if he wasn’t willing to fuck Clint, his pheromones were still calming. Clint let himself breathe for a minute, let Tony stroke his hands up and down Clint’s sides soothingly, and much to Clint’s chagrin, the feelings of heat began to fade. When he felt a little more stable, he pulled back.

                “Okay, we’re both fucking horrible at this,” Tony conceded as Clint pulled away from him. They ended up sitting almost where Clint had been before, their legs dangling as they looked over the city and the setting sun. It was easier, somehow, not looking at each other, less like a standoff and more like a partnership. It made Clint more at ease, and he said nothing as Tony continued. “Alright, new rule: all discussions need to happen here, on the roof, where your pheromones aren’t fucking with my brain the whole time.”

                “Fine by me,” Clint said, pulling one knee to his chest and leaning his head against it.

                “So, since you apparently didn’t know this whole time, let me explain this to you. You’re not a prisoner here. With the exception of leaving the tower or hurting anybody, you can pretty much do whatever the fuck you want.”

                Clint sighed. Why did Tony always have to be so difficult? Why couldn’t they just level with him? Why did they always have to pretend he mattered to them?

                “I’m not buying that. What if I try to pull a runner? You know I probably will, when the heat’s to the point that I might be able to survive on my own.”

                “You won’t be able to get out of the tower if you try. Jarvis won’t let you leave.”

                “Oh yeah,” Clint rolled his eyes, “and how far did I get today? What’s to keep me from finding a rope and repelling down the side of the building?”

                “Me. As soon as you hit the stairwell, Jarvis contacted me. If I hadn’t been available, he would have locked the doors to the roof.”

                “You mean… you let me come up here?” Which made Clint’s whole adventure a lot less exciting.

                “Yeah. I also lent you those clothes, but only because Steve totally forgot to pick you some up, and that was his job.”

                “So what…I don’t understand how this is supposed to go,” Clint complained. His head hurt He didn’t want to have to sort through their motivations. He’d really prefer they just lock him up. At least then he’d know where he stood.

                “We’ve only done this once before. Have I mentioned that? You’re not quite the same as our last omega, but I guess there are some similarities. You know Thor, the third member of our little boy band? We serviced his brother when he was in heat. Loki wasn’t wanted for anything on earth, but I guess he was technically a prisoner on Thor’s home. Loki was on the wrong side of a coupe, as far as I could tell. He had free range of the tower, but he was out of magic and he wasn’t allowed to leave. You’re a bit the opposite, I guess. You’re confined to the Tower because you’re wanted on the outside, by more than just law enforcement. But I’m not that kind of guy who clips a Hawk’s wings. You’ve got free range of the tower, including the rooftop and the training levels.”

                “Why?” Clint said, and he wanted it to come out as a growl, but even to his own ears it sounded like a plea. “What is your angle? What is SHEILD’s angle? Why am I here and not rotting in a prison cell, dying of heat exposure?”

                “I don’t know. Really. Honestly. There are very few things I don’t know, but this is one of the few things that I have no clue about. Even Jarvis hasn’t managed to find any plans for you in all of the SHEILD databases. The only people who know are Nick Fury and Agent Coulson, and they’re both being tight-lipped other than the fact that they need you alive and they plan to keep you that way.”

                It was the first thing that Tony had told him that made any kind of sense. It didn’t help him understand anything, but it kind of made him feel better, to know that Tony and Steve were just as baffled as he was. It helped keep him from questioning their motives. Nobody really admitted being ignorant when they knew what was going on. They might make up excuses, but they rarely admitted to not knowing.

Tony scooted closer, wrapping his arm around Clint. Clint resisted for a moment, his pride keeping him tense, then relaxed into the embrace.

“We should get you inside soon,” Tony commented softly. “Steve will be home soon, and you really will get hit with another wave. I don’t want that to happen on the roof, your pheromones could drop an airplane.” Clint chuckled and nodded. Tony smiled and continued. “Besides, I made you something.”

“Oh yeah?” Clint asked, climbing to his feet.

“Steve made me feel like a bit of a jackass about last night.”

“Because you were a jackass last night.”

“So I thought I’d make you something to make up for it. It’s just a prototype, but maybe it will make up for the whole thing last night.”

“Fat chance. What is it?” Clint asked, but Tony was grabbing his gloves and his helmet and flying off already. Clint watched him go over the side of the building, returning in a moment with a case in his hands.

Clint felt like he knew what it was before he opened it, but he didn’t dare let himself hope. Inside the case was a beautiful, perfectly balance black bow. It practically sang as he ran his fingers over it, pulled on the string, then lifted it from the case. It fit him like a glove, perfectly attuned to his range and strength. He pulled the string back, and it was like coming home. He felt like himself again.

“I heard you were pretty good with one of those. I made some custom arrows, too. Wanna go down to the firing range and try it out before Steve gets home?”

Clint grinned for the first time since he’d arrived at the Tower.

“Hell yeah!”


	12. Chapter 12

The first week of Clint’s heat went as smoothly as expected. Clint was alert and aware most of the time, begging only occasionally to be fucked over whatever surface happened to be convenient. He was usually sated for several hours after each round, and Tony was a viable substitute if Steve wasn’t around. Clint was still coherent enough to feel claustrophobic after the first day spent in his bedroom, so Steve would often take him to the roof to run or the basement to spar, or Tony would take him to the basement firing range and practice with him, Clint firing arrows while Tiny threw targets in the Iron Man suit. It didn’t take long to get Clint winded, and it frustrated Clint to no end that his body was being so delicate when he most wanted to prove himself. Despite this, the exercise made Clint feel normal and put him in a better mood, and sparing with Steve boosted his confidence, even if he knew that the alpha was pulling his punches. And Tony continued making improvements to his bow, showing a real interest that proved to Clint that Tony took him serious as an archer, and he hoped that both alphas could see that he could be an asset to them. Their intervention after the heat might mean the difference between a long leash or a small cell.

                Toward the end of the first week, Steve began to notice that Clint was tiring faster and needed more rounds of sex. His fever had returned occasionally before, but now it was a constant low burn, occasionally flaring to temperatures that had Steve and Tony icing Clint down. At the beginning of the second week, Clint began to ask for Steve specifically. Tony stepped aside gracefully, still present as an onlooker, often an eager and enthusiastic onlooker, but now it was almost exclusively Steve fucking Clint, with Tony joining them only when he was already on the edge of orgasm.

                They had been lucky for the first few days of Clint’s heat. But Iron Man and Captain America were two-thirds of the team called the Avengers, and their third member, an Asguardian named Thor, was on another planet. So it was only half way through his second week of the heat that Clint awoke to the strange scent of a beta, and found Bruce Banner at his bedside.

Bruce was sitting, his legs crossed, in a chair that Clint recognized from the kitchen. Clint blushed to realize that he’d slept right through Bruce entering the room with furniture. He knew why, though. Steve and Tony, in preparation for their mission, had exhausted him the night before. Steve had knotted him for over an hour, and Tony had instigated the exchange of several blowjobs while Clint had been stuck. Clint had orgasmed at least eight times before passing out from exhaustion. He knew that his alphas would slip out while he was asleep.

Bruce was reading a stack of papers in a manila folder. When Clint stirred, Bruce glanced up and caught the omega’s eye

                “Something go wrong?” Clint asked immediately, sitting up. His head spun for a moment and he fell back against the headboard.

                “No, no,” Bruce assured, closing his papers but not rising from his seat. “Everything’s fine. They asked me to check on you. Do you know how long you’ve been asleep?”

                “Ah,” Clint took stock of how he was feeling, the fading soreness of his body, the foggy grogginess in his brain. “About eight hours?”

                “Try twice that.”

                “Sixteen? Jeeze! Shouldn’t those two be back by now?

                “They had hoped they would be. How are you feeling?” Bruce asked, leaning over to take Clint’s wrist and check his pulse, even though Clint knew that JARVIS monitored all of his vitals.

                “Pretty shitty, I guess,” Clint admitted. He didn’t like to whine, but he’d learned from the last few check-ups with Bruce that macho bravado just got him hundreds of very specific, difficult to dodge questions. “Sore all over, headache, fever, and a little dizzy. Horny, too, but I guess that’s pretty much a given. So maybe like a five out of ten on the shitty meter?”

                “Nausea?” Bruce asked, giving a half smile at Clint’s banter.

                “No, but apparently I haven’t eaten in sixteen hours, so it’s hard to tell.”

                “How about cramps?”

                “Yeah,” Clint admitted, the dull ache in his stomach a near constant presence now, but he could feel it ramping up. Normally, Steve would have woke him for sex well before his heat started to intensify. It was better to preemptively satisfy the heat than to wait for it to cause a problem. Once the cramps set in, the only thing that could stop them was a knot. “Yeah, it’s starting to… engage.”

                “That’s okay,” Bruce assured, “that’s normal.”

                “So…” Clint trailed. He didn’t want to sound needy, or whiny, or any of those clichéd things omegas usually sounded like, but his body was demanding the attention of an alpha. “When…” his throat dried, and he coughed as a spasm hit his stomach. “When do you think Steve and Tony will be back?”

                “It’s… Hold tight, Clint, they’re on their way.”

                “That long, huh?” Clint deadpanned. He could read Bruce’s body language, the unease in his posture and the nervous twitch of his fingers. It didn’t bode well.

                “They’re on a plane, on their way back from… Well,” Bruce paused, and Clint could hear the slipup, that he had been about to say more than he was allowed. Clint wondered if his pheromones were having any effect on the beta, or if Bruce was just becoming more familiar with the omega. “There’s no way to know exactly how long they will be. The flight usually takes a few hours.”

                Clint moaned, his head falling back. He covered his eyes with his arm and tried to imagine how he’d go a few hours in this state.

                “I brought you something to help,” Bruce offered. There was a bag by his foot that Clint hadn’t noticed before, a nondescript white paper bag about as high as Bruce’s knee.

                “Tell me it’s not sex toys.”

                “I… can’t tell you that.”

                Clint groaned.

                “You know that’s not going to satisfy me, right? I mean, it’s biological that I need to be satisfied by an alpha right now.”

                “These aren’t going to fulfil your need for alpha hormones. They’re meant to… distract you.”

                Clint licked his lips, suddenly curious, then grinned.

                “Whatcha got in that bag that’s so distracting, doc?” he asked. “You and Tony cook up something special for me?”

                “Sort of,” Bruce admitted, handing the bag over. “It’s not specially made, if that’s what you’re hoping for. They’re standard for omegas in lone heats.”

                “Then what’s so special about them?”

                “Your alphas played with them before they went on their mission, just in case they were late getting back.”

                “Yeah? What does that mean?” Clint asked, pulling out the first toy from the bag. It was a purple dildo, good sized, malleable without being flaccid, with an imitation knot at the base. The knot at the base was significantly smaller than an alpha’s knot for the sole reason that it would not inflate and deflate, meaning it had to be small enough not to get stuck inside the omega, which was the entire point of a real knot. Clint ran his fingers over the item, not terribly impressed by it, until he caught the scent.

                It smelled like Tony and Steve.

                “Fuck,” Clint cursed, immediately going hard. “Did you have them jizz on this before they left?”

                “I didn’t… ah… specifically instruct them to do that, but something to that effect.”

                “Damn,” Clint moaned approvingly, and couldn’t help but rub his cheek against the phallus, which still smelled a little like plastic under the scent of his alphas. His cock was hard, his ass already dripping and ready. Clint rolled his hips, the scent alone driving him mad. “Thanks, Doc, I appreciate it. Now, if you wouldn’t mind giving a guy some privacy?”

                “Actually, I can’t do that.”

                “You… what?”

                “One of the stipulations of you using these toys is, unfortunately, that I stay and make sure you don’t hurt yourself.”

                “I’m not… I… Are you seriously saying you don’t trust me with a sex toy?” Clint snarled. “You have to be kidding me! I’ve had more alphas than you could fit in this room in my ass, I think I can handle a little fucking dildo!”

                “No one is questioning your…abilities,” Bruce placated calmly. Clint couldn’t help but hesitate, the beta seemed so calm and rational about it. “However, those alphas were giving you, in small doses, the alpha hormones that you needed. With these toys, you won’t get any hormones. The toys will simulate sex, and your body will prepare for alpha hormones that might never come. It could cause an endless cycle of desperation that could lead to you hurting yourself if there isn’t someone here to intervene. I promised Tony and Steve that if it came to the point that you needed to use these, I would stay and keep an eye on you.”

                “Couldn’t you have JARVIS watch me?”

                “JARVIS could tell us if your hormones spike or if you get overheated, but the system won’t be able to sense if you’ve hurt yourself. I need to keep a close enough eye on you that if you… damage yourself, I can intervene. I promise you, Clint, we just want to make sure you don’t hurt yourself.”

                Clint deflated, the anger leaving him. He shrugged.

                “Eh. Fuck it. I guess it’s not nearly the most humiliating thing I’ve done.”

But it felt like it. Even after everything he’d done, this was still embarrassing. In the past, he’d nearly been out of his mind for the heats. They’d been dream-like, he’d only been lucid for snippets of the most humiliating acts. There was never conscious thought, not like this time. Now he would actually have to make a decision and be aware of his actions. His mouth went dry and he rolled his eyes to the ceiling, but he couldn’t keep his hand from slipping under the thin sheet and reaching for his cock. He closed his eyes, trying to forget about the second person in the room, trying to block out the scent of beta as he sniffed the sex toy, his ass growing wet as the scent of his alphas permeated his senses. His left hand slipped under the blanket, leaving the sex toy by his shoulder so he could still smell it, and found his hole, his fingers prodding at his own entrance. It wasn’t terribly satisfying, more of a necessity than a pleasure, but he slipped two fingers into himself and tried to envision his alphas leaning over him, playing in him and preparing him for Steve’s cock.

                When his legs fell open, Bruce quietly moved to a seat at the foot of the bed. He coughed to get Clint’s attention.

                “This is where it gets really intrusive. You’re going to have to lose the sheet.”

                “Excuse me?”

                “I’m sorry,” Bruce said, and it helped that he looked sincerely regretful, “but I need to see what you’re doing to make sure… to make sure there’s no blood.”

                “I…” Clint cast him a pitiful look. “I can’t… Please, it’s too much.”

                But Bruce was unmoved, and snagged a corner of the sheet, slowly pulling it away from Clint’s form, slowly revealing his body inch by inch. Clint felt exposed to his core and swallowed loudly, his eyes going to the ceiling again. He was even more embarrassed that his cock was unperturbed, and possibly even excited by, this turn of events.

                When the sheet hit the floor, Bruce sat back and returned his attention to his papers. “I’m sorry,” he apologized again. “I’ll try to give you as much privacy as possible, but I won’t risk your safety. I promised Steve and Tony that I would keep you safe while they were gone.”

                Clint made a noise that was half laugh and half sob, but he quickly got himself under control. Keeping his eyes determinedly fixed on the ceiling, his hand again reached for his cock. His body had been ignored for too long, and he felt his fingers slip back to his hole almost of their own volition. He was wet already, and he shuddered as they rammed inside, this time having no interest in teasing or exploring. He tried to bring up the images of Steve and Tony again, but even with their scents so near the images weren’t as clear as earlier. When he moved the sex toy into position at his entrance he lost their image altogether as the scent of alpha was overwhelmed by the strong scent of beta permeating the room.

                Clint shoved the dildo into his ass viciously, taking several inches at once. His ass was more than wet enough and the sex toy slid in easily, but it twinged in protest at the sudden intrusion.

                “Take it easy,” Bruce cautioned, his eyes flicking away from his paperwork momentarily. Clint had a suspicion that the folder was just a prop. He had a hard time believing that Bruce could be that engrossed in his reading while omega pheromones were so present in the air, even if he was a beta.

                “Don’t tell me how to fuck myself,” Clint snarled, but it was filled with frustration, not anger. The dildo was softer than an alpha cock. It was smaller and slimmer than Steve’s, and the knot was nowhere near as large. Intellectually, Clint knew that this is because the knot needs to be small enough to slip in and out of him. His body, however, only knew that it wasn’t nearly big enough. Clint thrust the toy in deep for several minutes, trying all different angles and rhythms. But it gave him no relief. Eventually, he breaks down and turns to Bruce for help. He’s desperate, and he doesn’t care if it’s impossible. He needs a real, flesh and blood cock, even if it isn’t an alphas.

                “Please,” Clint sobbed, “I need you to fuck me.”

                Bruce sighed, his eyes sympathetic and remorseful.

                “That won’t do anything, Clint. I’m a beta. I can’t give you alpha hormones, I don’t have any.”

                “I just need something in my ass. I feel so empty.”

                “Clint, my cock isn’t any bigger than what you have in you now. It wouldn’t help even if it was possible, which it isn’t.”

                “I need a knot. I need a real knot, instead of this flaccid fucking plastic!” Clint snarled, and the dildo went flying across the room, hitting the wall with a wet thwack and bouncing to the floor. Clint felt a quick twinge of guilt- after all, his alphas had left that especially for him, in case he wasn’t strong enough to wait for their return. But it was quickly replaced with desperation now that his ass was completely empty.

                “That was probably less than helpful,” Bruce commented dryly, putting his paperwork aside and giving up the façade of not looking at Clint’s nude form. “What do you plan to do now?”

                “I need a knot,” Clint responded in what he felt was a very logical manner.         

                “You’ve said. Unfortunately, I don’t have one even if I were offering to fuck you, which I’m not.”

                “You…” Clint hesitated. His body was desperate, his brain was fuzzy. It was hard to keep track of what was going on. Why wouldn’t Bruce fuck him? He needed a knot so bad. Why wouldn’t Bruce give that to him? But, wait, Bruce was a beta. His cock would be slim and unknotted, like his own. So how could Clint replace this empty feeling inside himself? “You could fist me. Please. It would feel like a knot, right? I’ve heard of other omegas doing that before their alpha could get to them.”

                “Clint…” but this time Bruce hesitated, his resolve wavering. “That’s not a good idea.”

                “Give me one good reason you can’t put your fist in my goddamned ass.”

                “It… It might not be safe,” Bruce said, and he couldn’t meet Clint’s eyes, which were narrowed in anger.

                “I’m not gonna pop you for doing something I asked you to do. It’s not even like you’re fucking me, so you can’t say that Tony and Steve would get mad, and also fuck them, they don’t own me and they’re not here.”

                “It’s not… It might be dangerous… for you.”

                “You know what?” Clint snarled, “I’m sick of your excuses. I’ll fuck myself if you won’t, and fuck you for whatever hang-ups are keeping you from helping me.”

                “Clint, that’s not wise, let me wash the toy off and you can…”

                But Clint had already started shoving four fingers into himself, and in another moment he was trying to wiggle his thumb in as well. His ass gave a twinge and then an actual stab of pain, but Clint kept pushing until a hand fell on his wrist. He raised his eyes to find Bruce beside him, his breath coming in tightly controlled gasps, as he pulled Clint’s hand slowly out of his body.

                “Alright,” Bruce conceded through clenched teeth. “I’ll do it, but we do this my way.”

                Clint was a little startled by Brice’s intensity, but he didn’t feel that he could back down now. He nodded and pulled his hand from Bruce’s grasp.

                “On your knees,” Bruce instructed, “shoulders on the bed. Present yourself to me.”

                Clint complied readily, his desperation overriding his self-preservation instincts that usually kept him from allowing anyone behind him. Unable to see Bruce behind him, Clint lost himself in the feeling of being stretched. He moaned as Bruce inserted three fingers, Clint’s ass easily accommodating them. Bruce put a hand on Clint’s hip to steady him as Bruce added a fourth finger, but Clint only rocked his hips encouragingly and moaned appreciatively. Bruce licked his lips, his mouth going dry at the sight of needy omega beneath him. His body was reacting to the smell of omega pheromones in a way that shouldn’t be possible for a beta, and it frightened him. His fingers dug into Clint’s hip as he fought to control himself. As he began to work his thumb into Clint’s stretched and gaping hole, he could feel his control slipping. His fingers bit into Clint’s hip hard enough to bruise. The pain penetrated the haze of lust Clint was in, making the omega stop his wanton thrusting and needy moans.

                “Bruce?” Clint called, and there was real concern in the omega’s voice. “You okay back there?”

                “Just be still,” Bruce growled, clenching his jaw as he felt the beast stirring within him.

                “What’s going on?” Clint asked again, subconsciously pulling away from Bruce’s touch. Something smelled off about the beta, and it made Clint nervous. When Bruce’s grip on his hip didn’t relax, Clint pulled himself up and tried to look at the beta behind him.

                “I said be still!” Bruce snarled, releasing his grip on Clint’s hip to shove the omega’s shoulders back to the bed.

                Clint’s self-preservation instincts finally kicked back in and he rolled away from Bruce and off the bed. Clint went to his knees, his hands up in a defensive position. Clint knew that Bruce wasn’t much of a fighter, but Clint was exhausted from his heat. He gave himself 50/50 chances of overpowering the beta and glanced at the exits for escape routes.

But Bruce wasn’t coming after him. Instead, he looked dazed, still standing in the same position and staring at where Clint had been. His hands twitched, his expression staying eerily still. Clint eyed the beta, wondering what was wrong with him, feeling a little bad because he was pretty sure he was the cause of it. Bruce’s eyes met Clint’s, and they flashed green.

There might have been violence. Clint felt the danger on a visceral level, and he backed away from the beta. And just at the moment where Clint was sure that Bruce would attack him, Steve was there, inserting himself between them. They’d both been too preoccupied in their standoff to realize that Tony and Steve were home.

“Dr. Banner?” Steve called gently, his alpha voice cutting through the quiet room. “I think you need to remove yourself from this situation.”

The green faded from Bruce’s eyes, his expression fading back to bewildered. He nodded and stumbled from the room, never casting a glance at Clint. Steve didn’t relax until Bruce’s form disappeared from the doorway.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, it was brought to my attention that I keep messing up the acronym for SHIELD (properly spelled here, unlike SHEILD that makes an appearance everywhere else in the story). I have no idea why putting a word I normally spell perfectly in all capital letters means I have to switch two of the letters, but apparently I do it ever single time I write it. I was planning on finding it and replacing it today, but I messed it up so many times that I'm probably going to have to repost the chapters to fix it. So, stick with me, and I'll try to fix it in the upcoming chapters. Thanks!


	13. Chapter 13

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please read the end notes and leave me feedback. I need some help.

“Are you alright?” Steve asked Clint as soon as Bruce was gone. Clint was still kneeling in a defensive stance on the floor, his head reeling. He glanced toward the door to his bedroom, wondering if he should bar the door or talk to Bruce and try to figure out what the fuck had just happened. When he looked back, Steve was kneeling in front of him, giving him a quick once over and making his body react in a very visceral, desperate way.

“Huh?” was the best Clint could come up with as Steve stared at him inquisitively.

“I asked if you were alright.”

“Oh. Yeah, I… I don’t know what happened.”

“You just about went at it with the Jolly Green,” Tony called from the doorway. “Bonus point for being ballsy, but minus twenty points for lack of forethought.”

“I… what? He’s… He’s a beta. I thought it was safe.”

“Dr. Banner is a beta,” Steve offered. “But the Hulk, his alter ego, is an alpha. It hasn’t happened very much, but… assisting you must have woken him up.”

“Shit. Is he gonna be okay?” Clint asked. He’d heard of the devastation that the Hulk could cause. He hadn’t been aware that the monster had been hiding in the mild mannered scientist.

“It’s nothing a little oolong tea won’t fix,” Tony quipped. “Don’t sweat it. Bruce has got pretty good control of himself. He’s had to, with me around to piss him off.”

Clint took a moment, then, to glance over Steve and Tony. Both were in clean clothes, damp hair evidence of a recent shower. Still, Tony was sporting a shiner on his cheek, and Clint didn’t even want to think what kind of an impact would manage to bruise the soft flesh hiding under the Iron Man suit. Steve didn’t have any marks on his skin, but his eyes showed a weariness that spoke of violence and fear. There was a shadow on both of their faces that even Tony’s cocky mask couldn’t hide. Steve was like an open book, and Clint knew the effects of a mission gone bad when he saw one. He’d been on the wrong side of that expression more times than he cared to count. Clint couldn’t help feeling a sting of guilt that they would have to come back from a mission and deal with him. He felt even worse that he’d been here, being useless and getting into trouble, when he could have had their backs.

“Let’s get a look at that hip,” Steve said, cutting through Clint’s mental dialogue. Kneeling on the floor in front of Clint, Steve placed his hands delicately on Clint’s side, pressing Clint to lean away from him.

“What hip?” Clint wondered, even as he took note of Steve’s fingers gently probing the deepening purple bruise directly across his left hip. The pain finally penetrated Clint’s brain as his pulse calmed, and he hissed when Steve’s fingers probed too deep.

“I guess you didn’t notice Bruce trying to crush your pelvis, huh?” Tony asked.

“He didn’t… I guess… I just thought he was being a little rough.”

“You’re okay,” Steve proclaimed, taking Clint’s hand and helping him stand. Clint grimaced as he put weight on his left foot and felt the joint spasm in protest. “We might want to ice it later, it looks like it might swell.”

“Thanks, but it’s fine. I guess I kinda messed shit up.”

“Nothing that happened here was your fault. Doctor Banner has never shown this kind of reaction to omegas,” Steve told him. “We wouldn’t have left him with you had we known that this was a possibility. We’ll see about getting you a new physician tomorrow.”

“I’d really rather you didn’t,” Clint complained. “I like this one.”

“This one almost smashed your head in,” Tony said from his station in the doorway. “Actually, did he manage to do some brain damage before we got here? Because you’re sounding a bit cracked.”

Tony was teasing, but Steve looked alarmed.

“He didn’t do anything I didn’t ask for repeatedly,” Clint replied, failing to hide his annoyance.

“Then you asked for some weird crap,” Tony quipped back. Clint shot a glare at him, but Steve intervened.

“Clint, it’s normal for an omega to blame themselves when something like this happens. There’s no excuse for what…”

“Whoa whoa whoa,” Clint growled, as the annoyance finally gave way to fully pissed off. “Do not give me the ‘abuse omega’ talk. I’m not sure you’re aware of this, but I’ve been in the hands of the worst pieces of shit on the planet for most of my adult life. I’ve had things you could not imagine done to me. I’ve been fucked blind by alphas who cared as much about me as the dirt under their feet. So don’t try to tell me how I should feel about this. The guy made a mistake. He’s about as fucked up as the rest of us, so his mistake could have gotten me killed. But that doesn’t mean we fucking give up on him.”

“Okay,” Steve responded, and Clint had a hard time believing it was that easy.

“Okay?” he questioned.

“Okay, no new doctor. We’ll find a way to keep Dr. Banner from getting overwhelmed by your pheromones,” Steve said softly, his voice tired and worn.

Clint’s eyes flitting back and forth between Tony leaning against the door frame and Steve standing listlessly now that he’d assured himself that Clint was alright. “Um… Are you guys okay?”

“Depends on who you ask,” Tony replied, but Clint could hear annoyance in his voice. It sounded like an old argument.

“I’m fine,” Steve countered, “But Tony’s going to need to take it easy for a few days.”

“Don’t be such a mother hen!” Tony groused, “It’s just a couple bruises! Not like you and those ribs, Mr. Indestructible!”

“I don’t want to fight, Tony,” Steve said, in the tone of someone who had been circling the same argument for hours. Steve turned his attention to Clint, helping the omega get back on the bed. Clint had a moment of hesitation as he sat down. He’d been in a dangerous situation only minutes before in that bed, and his mind hadn’t quite gotten past it. Still, he knew that he was being irrational (he was loathe to say emotional) so he forced himself to sit before Steve and Tony could see his hesitation. The alpha smells were quickly covering Bruce’s beta scent anyway.

“How you holding up?” Tony asked, still leaning in the doorframe.

“Could be better,” Clint admitted, his head spinning with the smell of alphas and his body reacting now that the adrenaline had faded.

“Need a cock?” he asked again, but the shit-eating grin on his face said he already knew. Hell, he was a genius, and it wasn’t that hard to figure out.

“I wouldn’t complain,” Clint replied, smirking at the alpha in the doorway.

                “I’ll let you borrow my favorite sex toy, but he was damaged during shipment so you’ll have to be careful with him.”

                “Thanks Tony,” Steve grumbled.

                “Hey,” Tony teased, “I said you were my favorite. That’s a pretty big compliment.”

                But Steve wasn’t in the mood to joke. He perched himself on the bed beside Clint, pulling his shirt off and tossing it to the floor. The pants followed quickly, revealing Steve’s alpha cock, and it was a testament to how stressed and exhausted Steve was, that his cock was hardly reacting even with an omega in heat sitting beside him.

Steve tossed his socks with the rest of the clothes on the floor. It was a fairly un-Steve-like show of temper, because normally he folded his clothes or at least put them in the hamper. The removal of his shirt revealed a smattering of bruises across his back and chest. There was a dark bruised spot in the center of his chest, a perfect circle like someone had painted a target in the middle of his chest. Thankfully, it didn’t penetrate through to his back, so Clint doubted someone had tried to bore a hole through him. The rest of the bruising was random and seemed to be healing rapidly.

                “You sure you’re alright Cap?” Clint found himself asking, even though it was pretty obvious that Steve was fine.

                “Yes,” Steve huffed, and Clint could tell that it was an effort not to snarl at him as well. “Tony scanned me inside and out. Even his AI told him he was being overprotective.”

                “There’s no point to scanning the outside. That would be redundant, I can see it.”

                “So… Your ribs are fine then?” Clint cut in before Tony and Steve could start sniping at each other again.

                “Yeah, nothing but a bit of bruising left. What did you have in mind?”

                “I was thinking I could ride you. You could just lay there while I… While I do all the work.”

“That… would be appreciated.”

“Oi! What about me?” Tony huffed. “I’m a bit stressed here. Could use some relief, if you know what I mean.”

“If you’re nice enough to Steve, he could probably be convinced to suck you off while he fucks me.”

“You think? He’s been pretty pissed at me.”

But Steve’s cock twitched at the mention of sucking Tony off, giving him away even as he pretended to be disinterested. Clint smiled.

“I think he can be convinced.”

Steve lay back on the bed, a few strokes quickly brought his cock to full erection. Clint knew that there wouldn’t be more in the way of foreplay; Steve and Tony were too exhausted and Clint was too needy to wait. Still, it was the first time Clint had put himself on an alpha’s cock, but he’d had lots of firsts with Steve and Tony. Clint licked his lips nervously, suddenly aware of his own state of nudity, and reached out to stroke Steve’s cock. Steve shivered, then took Clint’s hand and pulled him down for a kiss.

“This is the slowest porno ever!” Tony complained, but a running commentary from Iron Man was nothing new. Tony took his job as spectator very seriously, so far as to give tips and rate performances. Clint flipped him off over his shoulder. Tony laughed, sauntering into the room to perch himself at the edge of the bed. He’d let Clint and Steve get started before he joined, he seemed to like watching the two of them together.

Clint pulled back from Steve and straddled him, pressing their cocks together and groaning at the friction. Clint was wet and stretched still, and only a moment later he was lifting himself up and impaled himself on Steve’s shaft. Clint hissed, feeling finally, blessedly full as Steve’s alpha cock sheathed inside him. Steve’s hands settled on Clint’s legs, kneading the taut muscles in his thighs. Clint felt Tony settle behind him, pressing against Clint’s back as he suckled the omega’s neck. Clint smiled, relishing the feel of Steve’s cock inside him, and tipped his head back, giving Tony better access.

“You’re wearing too many clothes,” Clint complained. Tony didn’t reply, but pulled away and began to shrug out of his clothes, dumping them in a very Tony-like pile on the floor (Clint had heard at least seven arguments between the two about laundry. And that was with a laundry service that washed and pressed the clothes.)

“Is that better?” Tony asked a moment later, once again straddling Steve’s legs and pressing against Clint’s back. Clint could feel Tony’s cock pressing against his back, his testicles nestled at the curve of his ass, probably brushing against Steve’s cock as it joined Clint’s body. As if in confirmation, Steve shivered beneath him and moaned.

“I think he misses you,” Clint conspired with Tony, though loudly enough that Steve could hear it.

“You think?” Tony asked, then bit Clint gently on the shoulder. Tony liked to bite. There had been words, during the first week, about how Clint did not have super serum healing and that Tony could not leave bruises all over his torso. Actually, Steve had said those words. Clint hadn’t thought it was that big of a deal. He’d actually like the attention, as long as the bites didn’t break the skin.

“You should kiss him,” Clint advised. Tony pulled away obediently, moving to lean over Steve and give him a long, passionate kiss. Clint watched lustily, and just a tad bit enviously.

When the two alphas parted, the three moved in unison, each instinctively knowing his place together. Steve turned so that his head was at the foot of the bed, making the movement so smooth that Clint didn’t have to dismount when he turned. Tony knelt at the foot of the bed, his knees set wide apart, his cock hanging proudly in front of him. The bed was set low to the ground, putting Tony’s cock at the same height as the mattress, so Steve could lean his head back over the side of the bed and suck Tony’s cock. It wasn’t a position for a beginner, but Steve took Tony’s cock to the root without hesitation. It helped that Steve had next to no gag reflex, and that he could hold his breath far longer than a normal man.

The position put Clint and Tony face to face, so that Clint could watch Tony’s eyes roll back with pleasure. Clint couldn’t help himself, he leaned in and kissed the alpha, which Tony meeting his lips greedily. After a moment, Steve bucked his hips to get Clint’s attention. Clint and Tony separated, and Clint focused on lifting himself off of Steve’s cock and then thrusting himself down, feeling Steve’s uninflated knot entering and leaving his body. Clint fisted his own cock, stroking himself with short, rapid movements, knowing that this encounter would be short and intense. Steve moaned beneath Clint, the sound muffled by Tony’s dick as it thrust into his throat.

Clint bounced more quickly, his shoulders slumped as his body neared orgasm. In front of him, Tony cursed and stilled, and Clint looked down to watch Steve’s throat contract, swallowing every drop of Tony’s seed. Since Tony was an alpha, Steve couldn’t deep throat Tony’s cock as he reached orgasm, but Steve took Tony’s cock right up to his knot, his lips pressing against the swell. Steve sucked Tony’s member clean, pulling away and giving a last lick to Tony’s swollen knot before pulling back. Tony toppled backwards, his pleasure-clouded eyes glued to the two on the bed.

Without Tony to distract him, Steve focused on Clint, bucking his hips at the omega riding him. Clint moaned and bucked erratically, but Steve’s hands settled on his hips and guided him into a steady, if no less frantic, pace. Clint felt Steve’s cock twitch inside him and he knew the alpha was close to finishing. Without thinking about it, Clint lifted himself partially off of Steve, lifting himself off of Steve’s knot, only to have his hips jerked back down, Steve’s knot seated fully inside again.  

“You need the knot,” Steve said, and Clint barely registered the apology in his eyes. “I know you hate to be stuck, but you really need the hormones.”

Clint could only whimper in reply, and Steve’s hands on his hips held him still as his orgasm ripped through him, with Steve’s cock pulsing and his knot swelling inside him. Clint could feel the swell of Steve’s knot until it was almost painful, and just when he thought it would be too much it stilled. Clint shivered, letting himself fall forward until his face was pressed against Steve’s. And then the hormones overwhelmed him, and he blacked out.

Clint woke in the middle of an argument. Literally, it was happening in hushed whispers over his head.

“Could have lost you…”

“Me? You- Fuck!” Tony responded, the whispers becoming less quiet. “Do you know how scared I was? You’re not even in Kevlar! You fucking jump in front of a missile with nothing –Nothing! – protecting you?”

Clint shifted, noting that Steve was still tied with him, so he couldn’t have been out for too long. Somehow Steve had shifted him so that they were on their sides, his back to Steve’s front. Tony was in front of him, leaning on one elbow to talk to Steve. Normally, they would spend this time enjoying the skin to skin contact, sometimes winding each other up until they could have another bout of sex. Clint doubted either alpha was in the mood for that this time.

“Couldn’t risk you. I can heal, you’re just a man in a suit of armor!”

“Hey, fuck you!” And now Tony was furious, his voice rising above normal volume. Clint wondered if he could continue to fake sleep. “You think I like watching you risk yourself? It’s part of the job, you son of a bitch!”

“You’re not a goddamned soldier, Tony! You don’t listen to orders, half the time you’re listening to that ridiculous music-“

“Do not insult my music right now! It’s my anthem, it only plays in the helmet, what the hell do you care?”

“I care because it distracts you!”

“It does not!”

“You are completely undisciplined!”

“I’ll show you where you can stuff your fucking discipline!” Tony snarled. If they had been alone, Clint wondered if the two might have come to blows over an issue like this. As it was, Tony fled the bed with a snarl and stormed out of the room. Clint felt Steve tense to give chase, but the alpha must have remembered his knot at the last moment, because he lay back down in the bed and pulled Clint close with a sigh.

Clint could feel instinct prompting him now. It would be so easy to put a wedge between them. Hot from the battle, hyped on omega pheromones, the two were strained and cracking. A cold word, a quick nudge, and Clint could separate the two, putting himself in the place of the weaker partner. Whichever one that was. Or whichever one would have him.

                Instead, what Clint found coming out of his mouth was, “You should take it easy on him.”

                “Excuse me?” Steve said, because he was far too polite to say, “Mind your own goddamn business.”

                “Seriously. He has his failings, and yeah, you probably need to address some of them. But right after a tough mission? Probably not the right time.”

                “You don’t understand what it’s like with him. He’s all over the place, he has no self-discipline, he can’t be serious for a moment! He…”

                “…would die for you, dude. That has to be worth something. Besides, speaking as one of the mere mortals that hang out with you, it’s kind of hard to keep up. Sometimes all we have are weapons and attitude.”

                “I… You think so?” Steve asked, and his knot had finally deflated and it released Clint with a sudden, unexpected pop. Feeling exposed, Clint pulled away from Steve and curled himself around a pillow as Steve sat up, his gaze going immediately to the door.

                “Listen, what the hell do I know?” Clint huffed. “I’ve never had a decent relationship in my life. But I’ve got sharp eyes, and I can see the way he looks at you. Besides, have you seen this place? A guy like Tony could get any guy he wanted. Multiple guys, probably. A whole harem, if he’s as rich as he seems to think.”

                It was kind of flat, but it made Steve smile.

                “So, I guess I have to go after him and apologize, huh?”

                “Probably. But be ready to grovel, because Tony’s not the guy to take a simple, ‘I’m sorry,’ without giving some snark.”

                Steve groaned, but flipped the covers off.

                “You gonna be okay?”

                “Who, me? Yeah, I think I’ll be okay in the thousand dollar bed warped in hundred dollar sheets. It’s tough, but I think I’ll survive.”

                “Don’t say that to Tony,” Steve cautioned as he padded out of the bed.

                “Why?”

                “He’d be really offended by how drastically you underestimated how much this bed cost us.”

               Clint chuckled, wrapping himself more tightly in the soft sheets as he listened to Steve’s feet pad away, off to find his irate lover. And as the footsteps disappeared, Clint tried not to think about how empty the bed felt without them. And he didn’t quite kick himself for speaking up.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, I'm at a pivotal point in this story, and I'm not sure where to go with it. Can I to get some opinions?
> 
> So far, it's been mostly Clint/Steve/Tony. Steve and Tony are in an established relationship. In the next chapter, I'm going to introduce Coulson (he was in the first chapter, but that doesn't really count.) I need to know if I would offend anyone is this ended up as a Coulson/Clint fic. Originally, this was really just supposed to be a lot of heat-induced smut, but it's taken on rather a lot of plot for that kind of a fic. So I'd like to end with Clint joining a specific relationship (not Thor, although there will be Thor/Clint, just not an actual relationship. And I wasn't planning any Clint/Bruce, although I can fix that it anyone's feeling it - maybe some makeup sex as an apology for earlier? I could make it happen, but I probably won't unless I get a specific request. There has to be somebody in this fic who doesn't fuck Clint! Or not.) 
> 
> Anyway, so can I get some feedback on who we'd like to see Clint get in an actual relationship with? I love Clint/Phil, but there's a lot of it out there. On the other hand, Steve and Tony have an already established, balanced relationship (or do they?) and sometimes it's hard to work in a third person without the third feeling like a pet or a charity case, or possibly pushing someone else out. I think I could go either way with it, but I'd like to hear what everybody likes so that I know what's working and what's not. 
> 
> (I got some really helpful feedback that the Bruce/Clint scene was perhaps a bit unnecessarily unnerving. I'm hoping I can use that in future chapters, and it made me wonder if I need to fix things between them in a bigger way. Like, a sexy way. Not that I have to. Just that I could.) 
> 
> Even if you let me know where you envision the story going, the worst I'm gonna say is, "Ah, that's really not where I was headed. Thanks though." So here's an opportunity for you to let me know what you'd like to see, and I'll accommodate as much as I can. I really appreciate reviews, and ones that tell me specifically what worked and what didn't are the best. So thank you! Even if I don't leave a specific comment, I read all my reviews and take them very seriously.
> 
> I'm not sure when the next update will be up. It really depends on the feedback I get and if I need to swing this story in another direction. Thanks in advance!


	14. Chapter 14

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is a bonus chapter, I hadn't planned to write it but the story felt like it needed it. It's a little rough, I knocked it out in about three hours. This is for any Bruce fans. I didn't see too many people who wanted to see a Bruce/Clint, but everybody seemed to feel a bit bad for Bruce, so here's some Bruce/Tony to tide you over. 
> 
> THANK EVERYONE SO MUCH FOR THE OVERWHELMING AMOUNT OF REPLIES TO MY QUESTION ABOUT PAIRINGS. They were all amazing, and amazingly helpful, and thank you. 
> 
> So, I had about a 50/50 response about Clint/Coulson versus Steve/Tony/Clint. So my plan (because I'm pretty easy to sway about these things) is to set Clint up in a permanent relationship in the epilogue, and to write two different epilogues- one where he's with Coulson and one where he stays in the threesome. So we're looking at about six more chapters, four with plot and then the two epilogues. Hopefully I can keep up the pace!

“You alright?” Tony asked. He’d expected to find Bruce with a cup of chamomile tea on one of his yoga mats, not scrubbing the skin off his hands in a prep-sink in Bruce’s lab.

“How’s Clint?” Bruce asked, ignoring the question. That wasn’t a good sign.

“He’s fine. Sleeping like a baby on my asshole husband’s knot.”

That got Tony a glance, but he put on the shit-eating grin for Bruce. No need to add Tony’s worries to Bruce’s while he was fighting not to hulk-out. Bruce didn’t buy it for a second.

“You guys have another fight?” he asked, his voice concerned even though there was a waver of panic in it. Tony sighed and crossed the threshold into the lab, leaned against the wall and tried to make his posture as relaxed as possible. Maybe talking about Tony’s problem would calm him.

“It’s an old fight, the shitty mission today just brought it back up. Steve wants to lead like he’s still in the war, but I’m not a soldier. There’s no point in trying to make me into that, I’d be a shitty soldier. If he could just trust me to do my own thing…”

“That’s not fair,” Bruce argued, but he didn’t stop scrubbing his fingers. “He needs to know what you’re doing, or risk hurting you. You need to make a better effort to let him know what you’re doing, instead of flying by the seat of your pants.”

“Yeah, I know. We were doing better, but we’re both just so exhausted. It’s not like a blame Clint. I mean, the guy’s been through enough , I can’t begrudge him Steve’s cock if it’s the only thing that can satisfy him. But this couldn’t have come at a worse time, you know? Thor’s gone, Steve and I are just getting back to normal from Loki, and then this curveball comes at us. Is it always going to be like this? I had always thought we’d travel, show Steve the world, you know? I want to spoil him. Hell, I’d like to bring you and Clint along too, make it a family vacation, invite Thor and Fury and Agent. But it doesn’t seem like there’s ever time for me and Steve to just… breathe, you know? But, seriously, I don’t blame Clint. It doesn’t seem like he’s had a single person do anything nice for him in his life. And the way he doesn’t even notice pain? Makes me want to go Iron Man on some terrorist assholes, you know? He’s like a super omega…”

“Can we just not talk about Clint for one damn minute!” Bruce snarled, wrenching the sink handles hard enough to snap one. Tony stilled, and Bruce clutched the edges of the sink in a grip that made the metal creek.

This was a bad one, then. It had been a long time since Bruce had gotten this wound up. Tony found his eyes slipping toward the ceiling, subconsciously glancing toward the cameras that his AI used to monitor the house. A word to JARVIS, and the AI could pump Bruce full of tranquilizers and take the option of hulking out off the table. But Tony hated doing that to Bruce. Hated treating him like an animal that had to be controlled. And Tony was always worried that he would either underestimate the dosage and piss the hulk off, or overestimate the dosage and kill Bruce. (Tony knew how unfathomably unlikely that was, but he’d never be able to like with himself if something happened to his science buddy.)

“You need to go on lockdown?” Tony asked softly. Lockdown was a code word for the hulkproof room Tony had created for Bruce. Once inside, Bruce would be automatically locked up for 24 hours, which the longest amount of time he could maintain a hulk transformation.

At the suggestion, Bruce moaned and dropped his head against his arms, his hands shaking as he fought to control his temper.

“I don’t want to transform,” Bruce said, and his voice was close to pleading. “I can’t stand feeling like that, like a monster. I just… I can’t take it!”

“What can I do?” Tony asked softly, his hand going to the beta’s shoulder. Bruce relaxed into the touch, so Tony wrapped an arm around his shoulder. Bruce leaned against him, pressing his nose against Tony’s chest and breathing deep. Some of the tension left him, but tremors still ran along his arms. Tony stroked the beta’s back and tried to think calming thoughts.

“You didn’t fuck him, did you?” Bruce asked.

“Uh… That’s kind of a personal question. You mean Clint? No, not this time. Made out with him a bit, but he needed Steve,” Tony said, and there was only the slightest stab of jealousy at that thought. Tony knew it was petty. He knew that he’d be welcomed into their bed, he knew that Clint literally needed Steve’s cock to live, and he knew the Steve still loved him. Tony even liked Clint, the only omega he’d ever met who had enough attitude to go toe to toe with Tony and come out on top. Still, moments like these made Tony wonder if Steve wouldn’t be better off with someone a little less brash and stubborn. Made him wonder, when it came down to it, if he could step aside gracefully, or if he’d fall to pieces like one of his machines.

“That’s good,” Bruce said, and it took Tony a moment to catch back up to what they had been talking about, and why the beta was now sniffing his neck.

“Why is that good, exactly?” Tony asked, but didn’t push Bruce away.

“You smell like you,” he replied, and leaned up on his tiptoes to press his nose against Tony’s hair. “The omega smell, it was driving me crazy. I couldn’t get it off of me.”

Bruce’s hands snaked under Tony’s shirt, and Tony shrugged it off without hesitation. Tony had never been body shy, and Bruce was like family to him. Well, not blood-related family. Like a hot, volatile in-law.

Tony wasn’t surprised when Bruce kissed him. It wasn’t the first time Bruce had asked for sex to keep him from becoming the hulk. The pleasure from an orgasm could almost always push back the big guy, and the foreplay usually calmed Bruce as well. It would be the third time Tony had done this for Bruce, the second time in the lab. Steve had done the same for Bruce once when Tony wasn’t available, and the three of them had an open arrangement for these situations. Tony didn’t hesitate to kiss Bruce back, his hands slipping under the smaller man’s shirt. When the two parted to breathe, Tony pulled the shirt over Bruce’s head, revealing the beta’s narrow form and milky skin.

“You’re lucky Clint has been putting me through the wringer,” Tony commented as he got to his knees and began to undo the buttons on Bruce’s shorts.

“Yeah?” Bruce asked as he helped to shrug the shorts away.

“If I hadn’t been servicing an omega four times a day up to now, I probably wouldn’t be able to get it up for you again so soon. But it looks like it’s your lucky day,” Tony told him while removing his own pants. True to Tony’s words, his cock has already begun to swell, and Bruce palmed Tony’s growing erection and rubbed his thumb along the head.

“It feels pretty lucky to me,” Bruce said, grinning at the alpha. He was fully invested now, the hints of hulk fading, but Tony knew that stopping could just as easily trigger a hulk reaction. Hell, he wouldn’t blame him.

“How do you want it?” Tony asked as Bruce kissed his collarbone.

“Want you in me,” Bruce said. Tony glanced around, saw a table with only a few beakers on it, and dragged Bruce over. Before Tony pushed all the beakers and papers to the floor, Bruce snagged a beaker of clear liquid.

“What’s that?” Tony asked and pushed Bruce onto the table.

“Lube,” Bruce replied, handing the beaker to Tony and putting his legs over Tony’s shoulders.

“Do I even want to know what it is really?”

Bruce shook his head, and Tony decided not to press him for details. Obviously, Bruce thought that it was safe to use in sensitive places, so Tony wouldn’t argue. It wasn’t the first time Tony had been with a beta, so he knew to use plenty of lube, since their bodies don’t make any. Tony found Bruce’s hole easily, slipping first one finger and then a second inside. On the table beneath him, Bruce was busy stroking his own cock, a big drop of fluid gathering at the tip.

“Fuck me already,” Bruce growled when Tony delicately added a third finger. Tony laughed, but pulled his hands out and slathered his own cock in a thick layer of unidentified lubricant. Tony stepped up to the table and Bruce wrapped his legs around the alpha, and nearly pulled Tony inside of him as soon as he felt the tip of Tony’s cock slip inside. Tony settled slowly, and stopped just before his knot. Tony had no intentions of knotting the beta. While Bruce as fully capable of taking a knot (carefully, and with far more preparation than Tony had given) they were having sex for pleasure only, and there was no real reason for either of them to want to tie together.

“Damn,” Bruce moaned, his hands clutched around Tony’s biceps. “It’s been way too long since I’ve had a cock.”

“Any time,” Tony offered, grinning and still even though he knew Bruce would like him to move. “You know that. Maybe I’ll let you return the favor sometime.”

And then Tony moved, and anything Bruce might have said was forgotten in place of moaning and clutching at Tony. They both knew it was going to be short and quick, and when Tony began thrusting rapidly, Bruce simply matched the pace as he fisted his own cock. In a matter of minutes, they were both close.

“Can you pull out when you come?” Bruce asked when we could feel Tony getting close.

“Yeah, I guess,” Tony replied, and Bruce could tell he was having a hard time concentrating. “Why?”

“Need the scent to cover the smell of omega,” Bruce explained. And alpha’s scent was strongest in his semen, but it wouldn’t do Bruce any good if it was inside of him. Tony smiled in understanding and increased his pace until he was pounding into the beta, ever careful to keep his knot from slipping inside.

Just moments before Tony would have come, Tony managed to pull his cock out of Bruce’s body, finishing himself with a few quick strokes. His semen splattered across Bruce’s form. Tony has been with an omega lately, so his body is producing large amounts of sperm to impregnate the omega. Three long, thick streams of come splattered across Bruce’s hips, stomach, and chest, joined moments later by a stream of Bruce’s own seed. The scent of alpha in the room is pungent, and Bruce finally relaxes.

It’s only then that the two hear the soft sound of footsteps coming down the hall, and Steve appeared a moment later. He quirked an eyebrow at the mess the two have made, but doesn’t hesitate to approach them. Tony grinned at him.

“Hey Steve, I don’t think we’ll be needing your expertise for this one.”

“Thank god,” Steve said, then blushed. Tony laughed.

“Little birdy wore you out, huh?” Tony asked.

“That’s an understatement. I think my knot is sore.”

“Poor thing, huh?” Tony whispered to Bruce, a teasing smile still on his face. The earlier fight was forgotten, and although Tony knew they’d have talk about it sometime, he was happy to let it rest for now. When Steve approached and ran his hand down Bruce’s side, Tony leaned over and kissed the alpha. He moaned, tasting Clint on Steve’s lips. But whatever jealousy he’d had earlier had passed, and now he just found it amazingly erotic.

“Alright, I’m good now, you can let me up,” Bruce protested from beneath them. As much as he as willing to accept sex from them, displays of affection could still make him uncomfortable. Tony laughed and Steve chuckled, but they let him get up and head toward the shower.

When Bruce had gone, Steve reached out and took Tony’s hand. “Come back to bed with me? Steve asked, and his voice is soft and filled with need. And Tony realizes that there’s nowhere he’d rather be than in his bed, between his alpha mate and their omega lover. And just like that, Tony knows that they’re going to be okay.


	15. Chapter 15

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey, I had to stick this chapter in because I wanted it but it wasn't fitting later in the timeline. Please let me know if anything is out of sink. Hope you like it! Thanks!

“This sucks.”

                “I know.”

                “No, I mean, this really, really sucks.”

                “I know. I agree with you.”

                “I mean, I was expecting the sex. The sex hasn’t been so bad. I just wasn’t expecting… the rest of it.”

                Side effects. Dehydration. Nausea. Sleeplessness. Mood swings. Soreness. Horniness. Headaches. Blurred vision. The list went on. There was talk of setting him up with an IV if the nausea got too bad. It wasn’t talk that Clint liked or wanted any part of.

                “It’s going to get better,” Steve assured, but he was nearly out of it. They’d had sex twice in a row, trying to make up for Steve’s absence the previous day. Steve had been on another mission, but this time Tony had stayed with Clint. Just the two of them, Tony did his best to give Clint what he needed, but it hadn’t been the same. Tony was a distraction, without the high level of alpha hormones that he needed. When Steve had returned, Clint had jumped him.

                “It can’t get much worse,” Clint huffed, and then felt like he probably shouldn’t have challenged the power of worse. Tony had much the same opinion.

                “Don’t you know that’s basically a curse?” Tony asked as he strolled into the bedroom. He wasn’t at all perturbed by their nudity, or that his alpha lover was curled around an omega. By this point, though, it was pretty much normal. “Hey you,” he called to Steve, and gave a whistle to get his attention. “They want you at headquarters in three hours. Go shower and take a nap, in any order you prefer. I’ll take over.”

                Steve mumbled and rolled out of the bed. He shuffled to the door, where he bumped fists with Tony in passing. It was a very alpha gesture, and it got under Clint’s skin when he saw them do it. It reminded him that not only were they both capable fighters, but alphas as well. They had started half in joke, when someone (probably Clint, if he remembered correctly) had commented that they looked like they’d gone three rounds with the hulk after one particularly feisty coupling. Now they did it as a small act of solidarity, to remind them that they were still in this together, even if they spent most of their time apart. Clint envied that. He wanted to fist bump as well, instead of being the opponent.

                Tony tossed himself on the bed and pulled out one of his ever-present electrical devices, this one about the size of a cellphone, and started playing with it. It was one of the rare times that Clint got to see Tony dressed and relaxed. As usual, he was wearing the same kind of jeans and t-shirt ensemble that he generally wore around the tower. And judging from the oil stains on it, Clint had to assume it was the same clothes he’d seen him in the day before. Tony gave a quick nod to signal, and Clint crawled across the bed to lay on top of him. It was weird to have a layer of clothing between them. Less sexual, and somehow more intimate.

                “I’ve been looking in to you,” Tony told him, his gaze flicking away from the cell, and it was with that mischievous tone to it.

                “Yeah?”

                “Yep. Figured out why you use a bow instead of a gun.”

                “Oh yeah?” Clint asked, and began kissing Tony’s collar bone, pulling his shirt aside to get better access to his neck. Clint knew why he used a bow, despite hundreds of bosses who didn’t get it. He doubted Tony could get it in a day.

                “Because you can choose how much force to put in it, right? Make sure not to put the projectile through the target and into a bystander? Also, no worries about faulty equipment. A bow never misfires.”

                “That’s…” Clint replied, surprised that Tony had actually pinned it, “Yeah, that’s a bit simple, but that’s about it.”

                “Don’t be too impressed. Agent Coulson helped. He seems to know a lot about you.”

                “SHIELD knows a lot about everybody. It’s their job.”

                Clint started kissing more aggressively. He was horny, and it had been nearly two hours since Steve had slipped out of him and fallen asleep. He was ready for another knot, or at least a good fuck, even if it wasn’t the one he needed. Tony just raised an eyebrow.

                “You know this isn’t going anywhere, don’t you?”

                “What? Dude, that’s shitty.”

                When Clint stopped suckling at Tony’s neck and looked up, they were eye to eye. It gave Clint a great view when Tony rolled his eyes.

                “You’re just in the horny stage, you’re not in the middle of heat. Which means, you’re just bitching. Plus, we fucked all day yesterday. I’m knotted out. Nothing short of in-heat pheromones are going to get me up.”

                “Well fuck,” Clint groaned, and slumped dejectedly back to Tony’s chest. Tony’s hand came up to pet his hair.

                “You could fuck me.”

                “Don’t joke, asshole. I’m horny and tired, I’ll probably punch you.”

                “I’m not joking. You’re horny, I can’t get a knot to save my life. Steve’s been so busy with you that he hasn’t fucked me in ages. So you do it. Everybody’s problem solved.”

                Wait… What?

“I thought you fucked Steve,” Clint said, because it was the only part of that sentence he could get a bead on. Tony grinned.

                “Oh, I do. Regularly and vigorously. But it’s not all the time. Sometimes he fucks me.”

                “Why?” Because Clint was designed to get fucked, and he was still pretty sure he’d rather be on top.

                “Why do you think?”

                “No, I mean, you’re an alpha.”

                “Who sleeps with another alpha.”

                “Who used to be an omega.”

                “I didn’t know that.”

                “You… Really?” And that was a revelation. Clint had always thought the I-used-to-be-an-omega conversation had happened before they started dating.

“I didn’t get with Steve because I found out he was an omega. I got with Steve because he was an alpha, and then I found out he used to be an omega. Which, was really kind of a weird thing for me for a while.”

And, when Clint thought about it, yeah, that was a bit weird.

“So… you like getting fucked?”

“That’s…” Tony replied, parroting his words from earlier, “Yeah, that’s a bit simple, but that’s about it.”

“Why?”

“Seriously, are we back to that question again? Because it feels good. Obviously.”

“Yeah, but… Doesn’t topping feel better?” And Clint felt a bit stupid to be asking a question like that.

“Why don’t you try it and find out?” Tony gave him a lecherous grin with that, and Clint rolled his eyes.

“Be serious, asshole.”

“I am serious – about you getting in my asshole.”

“Alright knock it off,” Clint said, and rolled off of Tony so that they were laying side by side. From the angle, he could see the schematics for a new bow on Tony’s phone, and he wondered what features Tony was trying to add this time. “So you’re… what? An alpha that dates other alphas?”

“Well, not just other alphas. Omegas and betas and of course that thing with Loki, so technically an alien as well. I’m a… what would you call it?”

“Slut?”

“Playboy,” Tony corrected with a frown. “I’m… adventurous. Before I got with Steve, I used to party all the time, sleep with anybody who wanted to, and pretty much not care about anything.”

“So, what? One day you were just like, ‘Hey, I should sleep with an alpha!’ and that was it?”

“You know, it’s actually not that weird,” Tony protested, giving Clint one of those looks like he was reading a diagram and there was a piece missing. “A lot of alpha and omega couples, especially ones with same primary sexes, switch roles all the time outside of heat.”

“That’s stupid.”

“Why?”

“Because,” Clint snapped, tiring of the redundancy when the both knew exactly why alphas kept omegas. “What’s the point of having an omega if you’re not going to fuck them?”

Which pissed Tony off, who snapped back, “Maybe because you love them?”

And that comment caught Clint flat footed. He might have bolted from the room if Tony hadn’t grabbed his arm and said, “Hang on, Legalos. I was out of line. I didn’t mean… to say it like that.”

“How did you mean to say it?”

“Just that… It’s not really that big of a deal, in relationships. The sex is… well, it’s important, but if you like somebody enough, you can work it out.”

Clint held his tongue. He thought, “That’s easy for you to say, you’re an alpha.” But he didn’t say it.

Instead, he said, “So it had to be tough, finding out your alpha was an omega right before you guys got into it. What, loser has to bottom?” And there really wasn’t a firmer way to change the topic.

“Actually,” and here Tony gave a chuckle and a nostalgic smile, “loser had to top. But it isn’t all the time. Hell, half the time we make due with oral and handjobs, and we’re perfectly happy. But sometimes I like it when Steve gets aggressive, and sometimes he needs a knot.”

“The way Steve talked, it seemed like a big deal.”

“Steve’s from the 40’s, everything with sex is a big deal with him.”

“So, what about the first night with me?”

“Yeah, omega pheromones set him off sometimes. It wears off, at least it did with Loki too, but if the scent of an omega catches him unprepared, he just has to be topped. I used to buy hookers, the really low class ones, just on the brink of heat and send them to walk past him. We had some good fucking after that.”

“I’m guessing he never found out you did that.”

“Are you kidding? I like my junk attached, thanks.”

“So, are you serious? You’ll let me top?” And Clint couldn’t completely blame it on being in the horny stage of his heat, that he sounded so eager.

“Have we not gone over this like four times? Yes, you can fuck me. Saddle up, cowboy, this pony is ready to ride!”

“And won’t… Steve won’t mind?”

There was a hairsbreadth of hesitation then, but Tony powered through it, responding with his usual enthusiasm, “Nah. It’s heat. We both know there’s no rules in heat.”

And that was enough for Clint, who was just as excited about the prospect as Tony. He rolled back on top of Tony, their lips meeting fiercely. It moved quickly after that, with Tony’s clothes coming off while they hardly break their kiss. Clint stayed on top, leaning over Tony and rubbing their cocks together when Tony’s pants disappeared over the side of the bed. They dry humped for a few minutes, and then Clint took Tony under the knees and lifted his legs. When Clint tilted Tony’s pelvis and began rubbing against his ass, Tony laughed.

“It’s not gonna be that easy, sweet cheeks. I’m not designed for this,” Tony commented, and then snagged a bottle of lube from beside the bed. They kept it on hand, since it was generally helpful for anything from hand jobs to the multiple rounds of sex where Clint’s natural lubrication just couldn’t cut it. It made Clint wonder if maybe Tony had planned this all along.

“Do you know how to use this stuff?” Tony asked, and Clint rolled his eyes. They were doing a lot of that to each other, he noticed.

“Yes, I think I can handle it,” Clint replied. Outside of heat, male omegas had very little natural lubrication. Clint had become very familiar with lube the few times he’d had sex on suppressants, especially since the suppressants made him almost completely dry. Clint lubed his fingers quickly, reaching under Tony with his other hand to spread the alpha’s cheeks. Tony was still grinning, his cock taking a fledgling interest in what they were doing. Clint wasn’t particularly worried that Tony wasn’t hard yet – Tony had already mentioned that he was feeling oversexed, so it would probably be a long ride to bring him to orgasm, and it was extremely unlikely that his knot would inflate. Despite what tabloids said about alpha stamina, they definitely could reach a fulfilling orgasm without inflating their knot, just like an omega could come without being tied. It was only in heat that the two really became relevant.

“Take it easy on me,” Tony teased as Clint’s lubricate fingers searched beneath them. “I’m just a poor alpha, you know.” Clint resisted the urge to roll his eyes again. He was pretty sure it was getting to be a habit.

“I know how to treat an alpha,” Clint fired back as his fingers found Tony’s hole and he pressed one digit against Tony’s entrance.

“Yeah, impale them on an arrow,” Tony replied, then moaned as Clint pressed a finger inside. Clint was amazed by how tight Tony was, and a little worried. He knew that his cock was slimmer than an alpha’s, but Tony was tight enough that it could still be painful. Doubt crept into his mind, and the last thing he wanted to do was hurt one of the alphas who’d been helping him.

“You sure you can handle this?” Clint asked, stalling his finger at the first knuckle. Tony snorted at him.

“Please. I’ve had Captain America’s cock in me. I’m sure I can handle your dick.”

Clint thrust his finger in as far as it would go, making Tony hiss in surprise. Clint would have felt bad about it… if he wasn’t pretty sure Tony had just insulted his manhood. Which, yeah, wasn’t as big as Steve’s, but he still didn’t have to say it like that.

“Big enough to fuck you with,” Clint countered, and began thrusting his finger into Tony’s wet, clenching hole.

“Yeah, that’s what I’m counting on,” Tony threw back, his hands clenching Clint’s shoulders as Clint added more lube and a second finger. Clint slowed down as he pressed too fingers in, Tony’s ass feeling impossibly tight around them, but Tony dug his heels into Clint’s hips and thrust himself onto Clint’s fingers. He moaned and told Clint to add a third, which Clint did without hesitation, and was delighted when Tony thrust himself onto them again. When they were buried the whole way, Tony said, “Let me turn around.”

“You sure?” was out of Clint’s mouth before he could stop. He remembered his own experience with being taken from behind, and couldn’t help but be concerned for Tony.

“No worries,” Tony said and turned over as soon as Clint’s fingers were free of him. “I trust you. Plus, I like getting plowed from behind.”

Tony goes to his knees, his legs bracketed wide, his weight resting on his elbows. It gave Clint a killer view of Tony’s ass, his testicles and now-firm cock dangling between his legs. Clint lubed his cock eagerly, then lined up with Tony’s hole. It was just as tight and hot as he expected when he pressed in, and Clint moaned at the first thrust and heard Tony’s echo only a moment later.

“I was right, you fucking tops have it way better,” Clint said as he settled his cock in to the hilt. Like all omegas, he had no knot to contend with, so after the crown got through, the rest slipped inside easily.

“Speak for yourself,” Tony replied, then lowered his shoulders and thrust back against Clint. Clint’s hands went to Tony’s hips and held the alpha when he pulled out, then snapped Tony’s hips against him as he thrust back in. Clint cursed and moaned as he set his pace, knowing that it wasn’t going to take very long. Tony was hot and tight around him, the alpha’s body opened up as easily as Tony had promised, and it felt amazing. It was such a different pleasure from being taken, new and exciting without all the triggers Clint associated with being taken. It was freeing.

Still, Clint’s ass ached idly, not the all-consuming need to be filled like when he was in the throes of heat, but enough that he wondered how it would feel to fuck an alpha with a plug in his ass. He wasn’t sure he’d ever find out, but it was still a curious thought. He thought for a moment about being in the middle, between Steve an Tony, while one of them took him and the other bottomed, but he wasn’t sure he could handle that. It was one thing to be inside of an alpha, but Clint thought he might feel trapped if he were to take and be taken at the same time. And there was nothing that made him trigger like being trapped.

Tony moaned beneath him as Clint thrust, palming his own cock with his hand. Clint wondered if he should stroke Tony’s cock for him, but Clint liked the way his hands felt on Tony’s hips. Clint decided that Tony was vocal enough, if the alpha wanted Clint to stroke him off, Tony’d definitely ask for it.

On cue, Tony barked, “What am I, made of glass? Fuck me!” It tore a growl out of Clint, who shoved Tony forward in a very un-omega-like show of upper body strength. Tony laughed, muffled by the pillow his was now pressed against, then screamed when Clint began pounding him. His hand worked his own cock, and Tony was amazed that, despite the fact that his cock was definitely smaller than Steve’s, Clint really knew how to work the angles. Every thrust hit Tony’s prostrate, and Tony was surprised that, although he still wouldn’t knot, he was definitely going to achieve orgasm much sooner than he’d thought. He worked his cock with his own hand, loving the feel of getting himself off while someone else worked his ass. Tony bit the pillow as he came, the scream that he gave barely muffled by the fabric in his mouth.

Clint felt Tony come only moments before he hit orgasm as well. The feeling of Tony’s muscles contracting around him pushed him over the edge, and he slammed deep into Tony before orgasming himself. Tony grunted in protest or pleasure at the treatment, Clint couldn’t tell which.

They stayed like that for several minutes, with Clint buried in Tony’s body and bent over the alpha’s back, until Clint eventually rolled himself to the side, completely spent. The heat still buzzed in the back of his mind like an annoying insect, but it was hours away from peaking, and sex with Tony had completely taken care of his horniness. Clint knew that he’d probably sleep until the next peak of heat took him, and was grateful to Tony. As Tony rolled over beside him, Clint could only grin at the alpha’s sated expression.

“That was pretty awesome,” Clint said, unable to come up with anything more original, and not really sure what to say. What do you say to the alpha who just ignored thousands of years of biology and social etiquette to let you fuck him? “Thanks man.”

“Any time,” Tony responded, looking like a cat who ate all the cream. “Believe me. Any time.”


	16. Chapter 16

                It went downhill in the second week. Clint’s endurance broke, and he started losing weight. Bruce prescribed him more vitamins and started a regimen of protein shakes and supplements, but Clint still lost most of the weight that he had gained since coming to live with Tony and Steve, putting him back to the weight he’d been at after leaving the terrorist prison. It made Clint tired, moody, and weak. He could no longer make the trip to the below-ground training rooms, and his beloved bow had to be put away until he regained some of his strength. Worse yet, his sight began to blur around the edges, and he was constantly rubbing his eyes to try and clear it. But it wasn’t an effect of exhaustion, it was a side-effect of the long-term heat he was enduring. Bruce tried to assure him that it would fade when the heat broke, but Clint could read the uncertainty in the doctor’s stance and knew that there was a possibility that his sight would never return to one hundred percent.

                This development gave an outlet to the deep-seated panic that had been plaguing Clint since SHIELD had captured him, and he began to have night terrors that made him wake screaming and thrashing. Steve usually woke him- several bruises and a sprained wrist taught them both that Tony was no match for the panicking omega.

               Another problem with the prolonged heat was that Clint’s body had ceased going through cycles of heat and now demanded hormones almost constantly, never realizing when it had been fulfilled. It meant that he could trick his body into accepting Tony’s cock instead of Steve’s, but unfortunately it also meant that Clint was never truly satisfied, always hovering just on the brink of heat desperation. By mid-week, Clint was either sleeping or fucking, with bouts of exhausted misery in between. His body ached all over, and Bruce had to prescribe him low-level painkillers to let him rest.

Things had been oddly normal between Clint and Bruce. Clint had tried to apologize as soon as he had seen the doctor, but Bruce had simply smiled in that self-depreciating way and said that he should have been more careful. He apologized for his rough treatment of Clint, then went into a long explanation of what had triggered his Hulk reaction (it boiled down to direct contact with Clint’s omega fluids). Bruce assured Clint that he would wear gloves in the future. Clint was glad that they were okay. He found himself relying on the doctor, especially when Bruce assured him that Clint was doing well and his heat was progressing normally. Still, Clint lived in fear of the next time Steve and Tony were called away, even though he knew it was inevitable that the world would need them.

                Clint knew before he opened his eyes that Steve and Tony were gone again. They’d prepared him for this, and fucked him into an exhausted sleep before leaving, but waking without them there made him feel a lot of things that he didn’t want to examine too closely,

It wasn’t so much what was playing on the television that tipped him off to the presence of another person, although he doubted either Steve or Tony would ever watch Super Nanny voluntarily, but it was more of a change in the atmosphere of the room. Clint thought he might be able to smell a different scent in the air, but he knew that should be impossible over the scent of his own pheromones.

Still, when he opened his eyes, Agent Coulson was sitting by his bedside. Clint recognized him, even though they only met once. Safe to say, the agent made an impression.

                “You can’t arrest me, I haven’t done anything,” Clint argued, trying to lever himself into a sitting position. He wondered where Steve and Tony were this time. They had told him that they had a short mission planned, but they couldn’t give him any more information than that. He’d been a little better prepared this time, considering it was a planned mission and not an emergency, and Steve had knotted him for a solid hour before they left. Clint could still feel the heat burning inside him, but he knew it would be at a manageable level for a while longer.

                “This week,” Coulson pointed out, but didn’t make any threatening moves. He was sitting in one of the chairs from the kitchen, his legs crossed, his hands folded on his knees. Clint surveyed him quickly, struggling to get his eyes to focus but still seeing the outline of a gun under his SHIELD uniform jacket. If the guy decided to get pissy, Clint knew he was in no shape to fight him. A life of crime made him automatically wary of anyone in law enforcement. Even sitting, Coulson radiated authority and expertise, and Clint really didn’t want to fuck with him. Still, his instinct wasn’t setting off any alarm bells as far as the guy was concerned.

                “Yeah, well, you should have taken me in when you had the chance.”

                “I did take you in,” Coulson replied, but he didn’t even bother to glance at Clint. His eyes are glued to his show, and Clint couldn’t help but turn his attention to the screen on the wall.

                “Dude, what the hell are you even watching?” he asked, pushing himself to his elbows. He actually knew the show, but he’s only seen it in bits and pieces when he was waiting for an assignment. It wasn’t the kind of thing he’d watch on his own. “Aren’t you military? Don’t you need to watch… I don’t know… sports or tactical maneuvers or something?”

                Coulson’s eyes never left the screen, but Clint could swear the agent still rolled them.

                “You’d be surprised how much this show resembles my job in the day-to-day. Only I’ve got a two-year-old the size of a tank, and when he can’t play nice, somebody dies. And we’re a specialized branch, we don’t report to the army or the military.”

                “So, what? You got babysitting duty or something? You pulled the short straw?” Clint snapped. It caused Coulson to flick his eyes toward the bed, but nothing more.

                “I volunteered, actually.”

                “Oh. Why?”

                “Partially because Dr. Banner didn’t seem like a good option,” he said, flicking the TV off with the remote.

                “And the other part?” Clint wondered, trying to get a sense of this guy and not quite able to manage.

                “Because I wanted to check up on you.”

                The words were carefully non-threating. Not, “See how your heat it progressing,” or “When will you be ready to go back into the field?” Still, Clint felt like the words were loaded with underlying expectations, and shifted away from Coulson.

                “I thought you could get that from Bruce,” Clint hedged, not really sure how to answer the question.

                “I can get your physical status from Dr. Banner or even JARVIS if I wanted to, but neither of them have much information on your mental state. How are you doing with Steve and Tony? How are you adjusting to civilian life? How do you feel about living with two alphas in the Stark Tower? Answers to these questions could help me gauge how you’re adjusting to this new life.”

                “What does it matter?” Clint growled, because he’s getting really sick of people pretending to care. “Once this heat’s over, I’ll probably never get to see them again.”

                “We wouldn’t do that to you,” Coulson says, and there’s nothing dishonest about his tone. For the millionth time, Clint wishes his vision were clear. He’d really like to see the subtle movements of Coulson’s face, but his vision is too blurry to see if the agent is being truthful. “Even if you don’t form a permanent relationship with them, spending this much time together will form an… attachment, whether you want it or not. SHIELD has no interest in forcing you into a permanent bond with them, but we aren’t planning on forcing you to separate either.”

                “That’s an awful lot of leeway for a terrorist,” Clint replied, skeptical. His hands come up to rub at his irritated eyes. It took him a moment longer to remember that he’s not supposed to be doing that, it won’t clear his vision and it could damage his corneas. He forced his hands back to the bed. Coulson didn’t comment, but Clint could see him follow the movement with his eyes. He couldn’t read the expression, though, as the agent continues their conversation. Clint wondered if the conversation is just to distract him from the building heat in his body, or if the agent really did want to talk to him.

                “We’d like you to be more than our prisoner. I’m prepared to offer you amnesty if you complete training and take a position with SHIELD. There are several branches that could use your expertise.”

                “You’re willing to offer all that to a killer that you just scooped out of the trash pile?” Clint scoffed. “Come on. At least sell me the bullshit. You’re not even trying.”

                “On the contrary, SHIELD has been watching you and Widow for more than a decade, trying to find ways to extract or eliminate you. We had a pretty good idea that you were both acting under duress, although we didn’t know until we gained live feed from that prison that you were an omega. I’m assuming Widow is too,” Coulson said, but Clint goes rigid and won’t give him any signs to tip him off. “Once that was affirmed, I made the decision to retrieve you.”

                “You act like it wasn’t all just dumb luck,” Clint derided again, rolling his eyes. But Coulson just studied Clint seriously, his eyes on the archer’s face.

                “Do you think it was a coincidence that SHIELD had a haywire training exercise in the exact same location where you were being held?”

                “I…” Clint protested, then took in Coulson’s serious countenance and reevaluated his thoughts. His conclusion was, “Wait a sec, you set that up?”

                “Set it up is a nasty way to think of it,” Coulson protested with a sly smile. “I knew we had recruits in the area that were training, and I knew I needed to get my boss to see how far from field ready they were. I also knew that you were in the area, and that I’d never get permission to send in a tactical squad to rescue an assassin who hadn’t agreed to be one of ours. So, maybe, some of the coordinates got screwed up. And if I happened to kill two birds with one stone, who’s to complain?”

                “You could have gotten those kids killed!” Clint snarled. Coulson gave the omega a wilting glare, and Clint felt the anger drain from him. The look said that Coulson did not take the lives of his agents lightly, nor would he behave recklessly with them. Besides, Clint was too exhausted to be angry. He rubbed his eyes again, straining to see Coulson’s face was giving him a headache.

                “They were, contrary to how they might have acted, trained and approved agents. However, they were not battle ready- we could both see that. The ideal would have been for them to radio for backup as soon as they realized that the compound was an actual threat. The team that was deployed to investigate would have found you as well. Unfortunately, the trainee team decided that instead of radioing the situation, as they should have, they’d try to investigate themselves. Although I had them monitored during the operation, I didn’t want to pull them out too early and damage their confidence. By the time they were in real danger, they had already found you.”

                “So you’re telling me the rest of the thing was a setup, but sending those kids to me wasn’t? I’m just supposed to believe they wandered in like a bunch of lost puppies and just happened to stumble on the one guy who could get them out?”

                “I didn’t send them to you, if that’s what you’re asking. Despite what I’d learned about you from research, I still couldn’t be sure you wouldn’t attack them. Your heroic and leadership capabilities took me by surprise, but I have to say that it went a long way to justifying to my boss why we should save you.”

                “Fat lot of good that did you,” Clint snarled.

                “What do you mean?”

                “What do you think? What the fuck good is an archer who can’t even see straight?”

                “Your eyes will return to normal when this heat ends.”

                “Yeah? And what if they don’t?”

                “Then you pick one of several other options available to you included tactical advisor, situational instructor, or weapons engineer. If none of those fit you, you go into the informant relocation program and I get to take credit for removing one of the most proficient assassins in recent history from our wanted list.”

                “You expect me to believe that you went through all that trouble and you don’t want to recruit me as an assassin?”

                “I didn’t say we don’t want to recruit you, and we don’t have assassins, we have agents. I would love to recruit you, but if that isn’t an option, we won’t just drop you.”

                “I don’t believe you. You don’t keep putting effort into something that won’t work for you. It’s basic math.”

                “Do you really think that’s all we wanted you for? I’ve got a satellite above Texas right now that can fire a laser from space and hit anything on the planet the size of a toaster. We didn’t bring you on only because you can shoot, and we won’t dump you if you can’t.”

                “Then what the hell do you want me for? Did you bring me in to be Cap and Iron Man’s little fuck pal? Because there are easier ways to get a whore for your golden boys.” The words stung Clint more than he had expected, like saying them out loud could reduce him to that. Or maybe he’d been secretly afraid that that’s all he is the whole time.

                “Do you know how hard it is to make the ethical call in the middle of a fire fight? How many times my agents have shown up to the aftermath of a shootout to find a closet or basement full of civilians who were just in the wrong place at the wrong time? How many kill shots have you passed up in place of wounding one of my agents?”

                “Not enough,” Clint sighed, his hands coming back to rub at his eyes. “Not nearly enough,” he protests, and he gets lost in all the empty eyes of the poor saps he’s taken out in the name of keeping himself alive. There are only so many he can save, so many he can get out of the way of the crossfire when he’s in the center of it. Every time he comes across a body where there wasn’t supposed to be one, it takes a little chuck out of his soul.

                He came back to himself when Coulson moved to the side of the bed and gently pulled his hands away from his eyes. Tony and Steve have done it a thousand times, but somehow it feels more intimate with this man, who’s nearly a perfect stranger. Clint feels exposed, but he has a feeling he can trust this man as well. This close, Coulson’s alpha smell permeates through the scent of Steve and Tony and his own omega scent. It’s subtle but strong, and it’s a testament to how deep into his heat Clint is, that it sends a bolt of lust straight through him. Even though it’s just scent, and it’s the scent of a man he barely knows, who works for an organization that has been his enemy for most of his life.

                “Drops?” Coulson questioned, and it took Clint’s mind a moment to catch up and realize that he was talking about eye drops.

                “In the bathroom,” Clint replied, “but I can’t put them in.”

                Coulson got up silently and padded into the bathroom, his dress shoes silent against the carpet. He returned a moment later with the drops Bruce prescribed and a wet rag. Clint held a sigh of frustration, knowing that he was more likely to stab himself in the eye with the drops than put them in himself.

                “You ready?” Coulson asked, leaning over Clint. He opened the bottle and set aside the rag, and Clint could only nod dumbly. Clint could feel the calluses on Coulson’s palm as the alpha cupped his cheek, and gently pulled Clint’s eyelid down with his thumb. Expertly, he deposited a drop of the liquid to the corner of Clint’s eye, and Clint couldn’t help but think that Coulson is way better at this than Steve, who is amazingly caring but is so worried about hurting Clint that he takes forever to put the drops in and makes Clint nervous. Tony manages to get the drops in without much fuss, but always ends up squirting way too much liquid in Clint’s eye.

                Coulson did the other eye, then placed the wet rag over Clint’s eyes. The cloth helped Clint resist the urge to rub at his eyes, irritating them further, and the dampness helped to sooth them. With his eyes covered, Clint’s headache abated as he stopped trying to force his eyes to focus. Clint heard Coulson sit down again, and mumbled a quick thanks.

                “Tony should have an ice mask for you. The cold would numb them, keep them from being so irritated. I’ll speak to him.”

                “I’d look ridiculous,” Clint protested.

                “That’s probably the least of your worries, don’t you think?” Coulson asked, but his voice wasn’t unkind, simply stating a fact. Clint thought he was probably right, and let the thread of conversation go.

They sit quietly for a moment, but the smell of an alpha so close was too much for Clint’s body. His cock, which had been half hard this entire time, became fully erect. The heat was building in his body again. If Steve were around, this would be about the time he initiated something. If Tony was around, they’d probably tussle until it turned into sex, then distract each other until Steve got in. Now that his heat had progressed, Tony’s knot would calm him even though it wasn’t giving him enough hormones. Knowing that he could fool his body with any alpha’s knot was making the alpha across the room a lot more appealing.

                “I’ll let you fuck me if you want,” Clint offered.

                “No, thank you.”

                It surprised a bark of laughter out of Clint.

                “That’s the politest let down I’ve ever had.”

                “I am a professional in everything I do.”

                “Everything? Including fucking?”

                “No.”

                “No… you’re not? Or no, you won’t?”

                Coulson gave him a sly smile. Clint could hear it in the alpha’s voice, even though he couldn’t see it. He was surprised that he even knows what it sounds like.

                “No, I won’t.”

                “Oh,” Clint said, and thought that over for a moment. He knew he wasn’t a catch. Tony and Steve seemed to like him well enough, but they weren’t typical alphas, and he wasn’t actually theirs. They were professionals too, in their own way, and he knew that they’d never say an unkind word to him. It wasn’t like he didn’t know his own faults. He was older than ideal, short and muscular in a way that made him look more like a pitbull than a lap dog, and calloused and scarred all over. But he was in heat. It was testament to Coulson’s restraint that he hadn’t made a move to seduce the omega. But to actively turn him down?

                “Sorry,” Clint heard himself apologize. “Didn’t realize you wouldn’t want to slum it with a criminal.”

                Coulson sighed.

                “Your alphas are going to be back soon. I’m not going to force myself on an omega whose delirious from heat, and I’m not going to fight your alphas. They’re in route, and the next time my phone goes off they’ll be in the building.”

                “In route could mean a hell of a long time, boss.”

                “You can handle it.”

                “I could die without a knot, you know,” Clint said, and tried to make it sound like a fact and not a plea. He was getting to the point that he might plead, but he’s not quite there yet. Still, it surprised a bark of laughter out of Coulson. Clint lifted the rag off of one eye to glance at Coulson. He was still sitting across the room, his phone in his lap.

                “I’m not buying that,” Coulson said, and his eyes flicked down at the man on the bed. “You’re not the type of man who dies from pain. From spite, maybe, but not from all the knives and arrows the world can throw at you.”

                “You don’t know me,” Clint protested, be even he felt the emptiness of his words, the denial.

                “You’re the kind of man that knows pain better than he knows his own mother,” Coulson said softly, and Clint knew that was certainly true. “You’re the kind of man that chews on pain. The kind of man that puts pain in the back of his mouth and sucks on it like candy.”

                “I don’t want to hurt,” Clint found himself saying to this impervious alpha.

                “Pain is a motivator. It is a device for change. Without pain, you can never truly be alive.”

                “I don’t need a motivational line from a hallmark card. I need a cock.”

                “You want a cock,” Coulson corrected, returning his attention to his phone. “You need to be patient.”

                “Fuck patient. Tony and Steve won’t care if I start without them. So why can’t you fuck me?”

“I’d like to be your superior officer once this is over. You’d never forgive me for taking advantage,” Coulson reasoned, and Clint couldn’t deny that it might be true. “Seeing you that vulnerable, you’d never be able to get your head around the type of power I held over you. Giving you to Steve and Tony, I might have sabotaged any kind of relationship they could have had with you. You might never get over how weak you feel with them.”

                Clint was feeling dizzy, his head spinning. He lowered the rag back over his eyes and licked his lips.

                “It wouldn’t matter,” Clint mumbled, but his head was starting to feel fuzzy. He rubbed his eyes through the rag, too dizzy to even lift his head and argue. He felt stupid having a conversation flat on his back. “Guys like that? They’d never keep me around. I’m a little fun, a little different. But it gets old,” Clint said, and surprised himself with how bitter his voice sounded.

                “Guys like that,” Coulson told him, “would be lucky to have you.”

                Clint laughed. There was dead silence from the other side of the room, and Clint risked the nausea to raise his head, lift the rag, and cast a glance at the agent. Coulson was giving him a dry, humorless expression.

                “Oh. I guess you were serious,” Clint replied, letting his head flop back to the bed.

                “I suppose I should put self-worth on the list of things to work on in basic training.”

                “You gonna get me a manicure too?” Clint teased.

                “You’d be better off asking Tony for that. I’ll get you some new toys, though.”

                “Tony got me some of those.”

                “I know. He’s designing a line for SHIELD in case you sign on as an agent.”

                They lapsed into silence again, punctuated only by Clint as he began to pant. The heat was hitting him hard, encouraged by the scent of a new alpha in the room. Clint knew that he was putting out enough pheromones to make any alpha interested, but Coulson didn’t offer to fuck him and Clint bit his cheek and didn’t ask.

                There was a buzzing sound from Coulson’s pocket. The agent flipped out his phone and checked his messages, then stretched and stood up. He began to leave, but paused at the door.

                “I didn’t bring you here to put you in a relationship with Tony and Steve. Despite how they might act, the two of them are a strong couple. They’re already established, and putting you into that combination could unsettle them. Or it could make them stronger. The point is, the decision has to be about what you want and where you fit in. Tony and Steve will survive if you leave them. I wouldn’t have put you here if I thought you could destroy two of my best agents. The question you need to be asking, is can you survive without them? Or can you fit into this life at all? Tony will always be obsessive and insensitive, Steve will always be idealistic and overprotective. Do you want to play house with them?”

                “It’s not like I have other options,” Clint defended, but it felt wrong even as he said it. Coulson gave him a dark frown.

                “Settling for them because it’s easy and safe won’t help anyone in the long run. I didn’t think you’d take the lazy option in a relationship.”

                “No, I didn’t mean…” Clint backtracked, wincing at how uncertain he sounded. “I meant, it’s either be with them or be alone. It’s not like any other alphas are going to be interested, with the way I look and act.”

                “Maybe being alone is what you need for a while. You’ve had people telling you what to do your entire life, the last thing you need is to get into a relationship the same way. Beyond that, though, there plenty of alphas who would be interested in you. You’re fierce, and your loyalty is beyond question. That kind of dedication can be very attractive to alphas. And you’re powerful. Lots of men are turned on by having someone so physically and mentally capable submit to them willingly.”

                The way Coulson looked at him, it was a little too serious. A little too intense.

                “I… Dude, are you hitting on me?”

                Coulson smirked.

                “That would be against protocol.”

                And then he was gone. Steve and Tony arrived within minutes, taking him thoroughly until the heat faded once again. But Clint couldn’t get his conversation with the agent out of his head. He wondered what it would be like to have a boss like that, one that talked to him and gave him choices. He knew there was a good chance his pheromones had generated some of the other aspects of their conversation. Still, he had to give the alpha props. There weren’t a lot of alphas out there who could resist being in a small room with a desperate omega. If for nothing but his self-control alone, Clint was intrigued.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry there's no sex in this chapter! I needed to move the plot along. I promise, there will be sex again!


	17. Chapter 17

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey, if you're looking for the new chapter right now, I had to add it in at slot 15, it wasn't fitting this late in the story but I wanted to add it. Sorry! Hopefully is doesn't screw anyone up too badly!

Toward the end of the second week, Clint’s body succumbed to nausea. He got dehydrated, and Bruce insisted that Clint have an intravenous drip of fluids to keep him from deteriorating any further. Clint hated the IV, hated the entire idea of the IV, but he was literally in no shape to be protesting their decisions. When the night terrors took him, though, the first thing Clint did was to yank the IV viciously from his vein. Steve managed to calm him and Bruce resettled the IV in the opposite arm, but the damage had already been done.

                By the end of the week, Clint looked like he’d been subjected to horrors that no man should have to endure. He was underweight again, with bruising around his eyes from several nearly sleepless nights and his near-constant rubbing when his alphas dropped their guard. His arms were covered in a motley of bruises and scabs where his IVs had been alternately torn and reset, or where Bruce had needed to take blood samples. His hips and thighs were covered in bruises and handprints from where he demanded more frequent and vigorous sex with his alphas. Finally, on top of all his other trials, his blurred vision meant that he was always bordering on hysteria, his mind preparing for threats and attacks from every angle even as logic told him that he was as safe as he could hope to be. Stressed and sick, Clint was at the end of his proverbial rope.

                This was, of course, when Natasha found him.

                “It’s time to go.”

                Clint was awake immediately, and tried to sit up, only to find his head swimming and his stomach rolling. There was something over his eyes, possibly a blindfold, but his hands were free.

                “Tasha?” he whispered. He couldn’t remember how he’d gotten this way, couldn’t guarantee their enemies had been neutralized. “I think you’re going to have to leave me. I can’t hoof it in this state.”

                “I’ve got transport waiting,” she replied calmly. “My mission is to retrieve you,” she explained. And Natasha never failed her missions.

                “How far?” Clint asked, and tried to lever himself up again.

“Six flights of stairs and three blocks through an alley behind the building,” Natasha told him and helped him with an arm behind his shoulders, pulling him up slowly until he was in a sitting position. Clint took stock of himself, cataloguing his aching body and his pounding head. Clint reached up and pulled the blindfold off. It felt oddly like plastic in his hands, and when his vision cleared he found himself holding a facial mask, the kind women would freeze and then sleep in. It was so bizarre that he simply stared at it, blinking and wondering if his sight had gotten so bad that he was actually hallucinating. Was that even possible?

“Turn,” Natasha commanded, and Clint shoved his feet over the side of the bed, following her instructions instinctively. When she knelt by his legs, Clint realized that he was naked. She helped him with soft cotton underwear, her hands brisk and efficient as she dressed him. When the clothes slipped over his hips, Clint cringed at how sore he was.

“Am I… Nat, am I in heat?” he asked, his voice horrified and incredulous. Natasha paused, her hands stalling just inches from his feet, a pair of rolled up jeans poised in her fingers.

“I can get you suppressants,” she told him, and her voice was so free of inflection that Clint knew she was beating herself up about it. “I have enough to get you through until we get back to base. Or I can knock you out.”

“The suppressants…” Clint protested, his mind chasing a memory. “He said they’d kill me.” But he couldn’t quite remember who had said that.

“You’re tough,” Natasha countered, but even she didn’t look convinced.

“The truth, Tasha.”

“It’s…” she said, and had a hard time even getting the words out. “Even if it does, it’s still a better way to die.”

                Clint contemplated that for a moment, as much as his fuzzy mind would let him. Better to die on suppressants than be fucked by a thousand alphas until he was torn in two? Yes. Wasn’t there another option?

“Where… I was with an alpha,” he admitted, ashamed at his own weakness, the way his body craved it even now. “Where did he go?”

“Two alphas,” she told him, and she was all business again, rolling his pants up his legs, helping him when he could barely lift his hips for her. “I created a distraction for them. I’d have been here sooner, but they only let the damn laundry agency into the building, and I had the worst time getting hired by the company.”

But things were starting to come back to Clint now. The face of a blonde man flashed through his mind, and the cheeky smile of a brunette. He remembered the feel of his new bow in his hands, remembered Steve kissing his neck while Tony sucked his cock.

“You didn’t hurt them, did you?” he found himself asking.

“No,” Natasha replied, and her voice was curious. She was kneeling by his feet now, putting on his socks. He could see shoes sitting beside her on the floor, but his vision was too blurred to see if they were boots or sneakers. “It’s a false alert on the other side of town. Why do you care?”

“They were…” Clint tried, licking his lips as mouth went dry. “They were nice to me. They were trying to help me.”

“Oh ptichka,” she said, and Natasha only called him Little Bird when he’d done something very, very stupid. “Is that what they told you?”

And what was more likely, really? That two superheroes, one the crown jewel of America and the other a billionaire genius, would take an interest in him? Or that they were setting him up to be their own assassin and sex slave?

“Why’d they have to pretend to be nice?” he asked, and his voice sounded hollow even to his own ears. Natasha was lacing his shoes (boots, it turned out) and didn’t even look at him. Still, after a moment, she answered.

“Your mental barriers are down when you’re in heat. You’re more open to suggestion. Once you trust them, they’ll be able to train you to do whatever they want. Being nice to you lowers your inhibitions, makes you see them as good providers and protectors to your omega side.”

“Why couldn’t they just…” Clint began, but before he could ask why they couldn’t just torture him (it would be just as effective and half as cruel in the long run) Natasha covered his mouth. A moment later, there were footsteps in the hall. Natasha pulled her gun and moved into a defensive crouch in front of Clint.

“Yo, Clint, you up? There was some kind of SNAFU with SHIELD’s shitty emergency system. Steve’s still on cleanup but I brought Schwarma and…”

The billionaire’s silhouette appeared in the doorway, partially obscured by Natasha crouched protectively in front of Clint. In credit to Tony, he simply stopped and stared at them, before clucking his tongue and asking, “Unless you’ve got other plans?”

“Drop the weapon,” Natasha demanded, and Clint realized that Tony was still in the Iron Man suit, one arm clutching a bag of takeout and the other holding his helmet.

“Drop the… Lady, I am the weapon!” Tony snapped, offended.

“I said take it off,” Natasha demanded, and rose threateningly to her feet. “Unless you’d like a hole in your head to match the one in your chest.”

“Low blow,” Tony countered, “But, yeah, I don’t take my clothes off for just any omega. Tell you what, let me take you to dinner, maybe I’ll make an exception.”

“What are you doing?” Clint hissed at Natasha. If he’d thought he was capable, he’d have been on his feet and in her face. He wondered if it was the heat, but he didn’t like the idea of Natasha threatening his alpha.

“That suit is worth millions,” Natasha told him. “We could get us both enough suppressants to last the rest of our lives. We wouldn’t have to kill anymore.”

“Sorry,” Tony replied, “but this suit is custom made and fitted. It’s not for sale. It’s dangerous. You’d shoot your own eye out if I gave it to you. If it were for sale, it would bring a hell of a lot more than a million dollars, but, sadly, still not for sale.”

“Take it off.”

“Uh, no.”

“Tasha, stop,” Clint demanded. “We’re not selling the Iron Man suit. Too many people could die if it got to the wrong people. I won’t have that blood on my hands.” Clint was surprised at how steady his voice sounded. He wondered idly if he could manage to get to his feet, or if he’d fall flat on his face.

“But I’m supposed to have your blood on my hands?” Natasha whispered.

“It wasn’t your fault, Tasha. Shit happens, you know that.”

“No one has to die!” Tony yelled, trying to make angry gestures while still holding his helmet and the bag of fast food. “Seriously, sweetie, do you not speak English?” And there were so many things in the sentence that Natasha would shoot a man for that Clint actually flinched. When she stepped aggressively closer, Clint found the strength to push himself to his feet and grab her arm. He’d forgotten about his IV, though, and it tugged painfully and rattled its stand as he moved. He snarled at it and tugged at the line.

Tony went ballistic, dropping everything as he put his hands up to stop Clint. Natasha blocked him, but the alpha snarled at her, then yelled, “Clint, god damn it, do not pull that out! You don’t have another arm to stick it in!”

“Don’t think you can give him orders, alpha!” Natasha snarled, but Clint quit tugging on his IV anyway.

“It doesn’t matter,” Clint sighed. “There’s no way you can get out of here with me now. I’m dead weight. You’re going to have to leave me.”

Natasha turned to him, her face steely and her eyes bright. She’d come to that conclusion as well, but she hadn’t convinced herself to do it yet.

“Give me the gun,” Clint said softly. “I’ll hold them off as long as I can for you.”

“We can still…”

“Still what, Nat? Watch me fall down the stairs while you hold off Iron Man? Hope I make it to the ally, where I’m likely to get raped by every alpha in a five mile radius? For fuck’s sake, Natasha, at least let me die giving you a chance to get away. Give my death meaning or some shit.”

“Okay,” Natasha agreed quietly. She helped him take the gun from her, the barrel never leaving Tony’s form. She steadied him on his feet, made sure his shaking hands were wrapped securely around the handle, and gently kissed him on the forehead.

“She doesn’t have to go,” Tony tried one more time. “We can protect her.”

But Clint knew that Natasha would never allow herself to be captured. She had come here as a rescue mission, and she’d rather die than let them take her prisoner. In that, Clint and Natasha were the same- neither did well in captivity.

“Fuck off, alpha,” Natasha snarled, then sauntered past him. In the doorway, she paused and looked back at Clint. “If you survive this, I’ll find you again,” she promised. Then she was gone. Clint listened until he heard her open and close the stairwell door, then until her footsteps disappeared. To Clint, it was like she disappeared instantly in a puff of smoke. Tony, however, wasn’t nearly as patient.

“Okay, she’s gone, can we put the gun down already? I need to check you over, then find out what the hell she did to Jarvis.”

“Give it a sec, I want her to have a good head start.”

“Headst- Damnit, Clint! I’m not going after her! I want to see if you messed up that IV like you messed up the last three.”

“I’m not going to bleed out in five minutes,” Clint argued, but his hand was shaking. Clint moved his finger off the trigger, afraid he might accidentally set the gun off. He was trying to aim the gun over Tony’s shoulder, but his vision was so blurry that he couldn’t even trust that.

There was a pounding of feet in the other room, too many for Steve to be coming in alone. Clint switched his aim to the door just as the blurry shapes of Steve and Coulson came charging into the room. Steve was fully suited in the Captain America costume, and Agent Coulson was suited in his SHIELD standard gear. Clint, still in the jeans and boots Natasha had put him in, was starting to feel underdressed.

“What the hell are you doing?” Steve yelled, and it made Clint cringe. He was glad he didn’t have his finger on the trigger, he was pretty sure he flinched and it would have gone off.

“Drop the weapon,” Agent Coulson commanded. Natasha was long gone, there wasn’t any way he could take on three alphas anyway. Clint clicked the safety on and put the gun on the floor.

Steve was on Tony in a second, checking his head over, in case Clint had somehow managed to shoot him and no one had noticed.

“Get off, Steve, seriously!” Tony protested, and then pulled out of Steve’s grip to step toward Clint. “If you pulled that IV out again you’re grounded. Seriously, no friends for a month.”

They checked him over, both alphas, even though Steve was still pissed. Despite his best efforts, Clint hadn’t managed to dislodge his IV this time, a testament to how securely Bruce had taped it. He had managed to tangle it with the drip, and Steve detached it, crimped it, and taped it to Clint’s arm until they could get it sorted. When they had affirmed that Clint was fine, despite being practically carried between his two alphas, Agent Coulson stepped in.

“We need you to catch Widow,” he said to Steve.

“No,” Steve responded, barely glancing at Agent Coulson, who sighed.

“Steve, if she gets back to her handlers, we may never get her back. She’ll spend the rest of her life as a slave to her suppressants, and probably die for men that care nothing about her. You’re the only one fast enough to catch her.”

“Get the hell out of here, Cap!” Tony growled, and took Clint’s weight by himself. “I’m fine, I can handle Clint, go after her! Duty calls, man!”

And with a low growl in his throat, Steve was running back out of the room and after Natasha. Clint doubted he could catch Natasha, and he was starting to wonder why it would be such a bad thing if they did.

Agent Coulson was the only calm one in the room, and he slowly approached Clint and picked up the discarded weapon, looked it over, removed the ammo, and slipped it into his coat.

“I’ll radio if we catch her,” Coulson said. His expression was stony, his voice flat. He reminded Clint a bit of Natasha when she was truly angry.

“Yeah, great,” Tony responded flatly. Clint was swaying on his feet, and Tony was really interested in getting him back into bed.

“You know how stupid that was, don’t you?” Coulson asked Clint, who nodded. His legs gave out then, and he found himself on his knees, with Tony guiding him to the floor.

“Which part?” Clint joked. “Aiming a gun at Stark, or waiting until his super-soldier husband got home to drop it?”

“How about the part when you let Black Widow go back to the bastards who did this to you? How about the part where you aimed a gun at a man that took you into his home and serviced you for nearly three weeks? Or the part where you just undermined all the trust you’d built between the three of you? Did you even think that this might have an effect on whether or not you can function as part of this team? Or are you so wrapped up in yourself that you forgot about working for SHIELD? Do you even care about what happens after this heat?” Coulson snarled. He was nearly shouting, and out of all the ass-reamings Clint had received in his life, that one rated in the top five.

Probably because all of it was true.

“Lay off,” Tony defended. “Let’s see how well you do when you’ve been getting fucked for two solid weeks.”

Coulson sighed and rubbed his face, looking like someone had just asked him to work overtime for the next month. Still, despite his anger and all the omega pheromones in the air, Coulson backed down.

“Alright, I’m sorry. I know tensions are running high right now. Please excuse me, I need to make sure Steve has backup.”

“Go, then. I’ve got it here,” Tony replied, but Coulson made no move to actually leave.

“Do you want help getting him back in bed?” Coulson asked.

“I don’t need help,” Clint growled, because he’d had about enough of alphas treating him like an infant. Now if only his body would cooperate. Clint struggled to knees, but no further. He growled, and it seemed like another insult in a long line of them tonight. Reliant on two alphas, unable to follow Natasha, aiming a gun at one of his alphas, disappointing his only hope for mercy from SHIELD, it had just been an altogether shitty night. When Tony knelt beside him and reached out to help him up, Clint actually snapped his teeth at the alpha.

“You sure you don’t want help?” Coulson asked, and Clint growled at him as well.

“Yeah, I don’t think you’re his favorite person right now. Let me handle it. Clint’s gonna let me help him back to bed, right Clint?” Tony asked, and reached for Clint again. But Clint pulled his arm out of the alpha’s reach.

“Don’t.”

                “Clint…”

                “Just don’t. Thank you for letting Natasha go. But I don’t want your help.”

                “Dude, I can’t just leave you on the floor. That’s like ‘Care of Omegas 101’ stuff. Cap would have a cow.”

                “Just give me a minute, I can make it to the damned bed on my own. I know you’re trying to help. But please… stop.”

                “Why?”

                “Because it won’t last, you fucker! Because I can’t come to rely on this and then have it pulled away from me!”

                He was screaming now, he knew that. He wouldn’t admit to tears, or the way his body shook. But he knew that he was overreacting, for whatever reason. Blame stress. Blame the nausea. Blame his heat. But he was so tired of these fuckers acting like they cared.

                “Clint,” and this time it was Coulson kneeling in front of him, speaking in soothing tones, “no one’s going to abandon you. We’ve had this discussion before. You can let your guard down.”

                It was more than Clint could take. The mind games, the lies, he was just fucking sick of it.

                “Why? Fuck you! Why? Why now? Why now, when I’m broken and useless? Why not ten fucking years ago when I could have been some fucking help!”

                Clint was screaming in his face, but Coulson remained unfazed. If anything, Clint’s temper tantrum seemed to make the agent more pissed off.

                “There was no way to extract you ten years ago. Cap was barely thawed, and we had no idea that he was a super-alpha. We could have killed you, and many of our agents tried. But you tenaciously clung to life. I’m sorry that you’ve suffered, but SHIELD is not at fault. Now, we’ve put a tail on the Black Widow and we’re trying to convince her to come in voluntarily. Dr. Banner tells me that you should be nearing the tail end of your heat. And the higher ups tell me that Thor is likely to appear within the week. All evidence tallied, it’s fairly likely you’ll make it through this alive,” Coulson informed, but there was still a livid gleam in his eyes. The agent was furious. “But aim weapon at one of my Avengers again, and I’ll end you myself.”

                The words were delivered in a cold, unfazed and unforgiving voice, and then Coulson stormed out of the room, presumably to continue tracking Black Widow. Clint felt the nausea hit him again, and on top of the cold, empty feeling in the pit of his stomach, it was overwhelming.

                “Clint,” Tony said softly, his hands fluttering helplessly around the omega.

                “Don’t,” Clint said softly, his voice thick. Usually he could handle being reamed out. Hell, normally it included violence when someone was disappointed in him. But then, normally he wasn’t just as disappointed with himself.

                “Don’t listen to him,” Tony tried to sooth, but he was terrible at it. “Agent takes his rulebook to bed with him and sucks on it like a pacifier. He sleeps in printed pajamas that look like his uniform. You can’t take anything he says seriously.”

                “Even the stuff that’s right?”

                “Yeah,” Tony deadpanned without hesitation, desperate to lighten the mood, “especially that shit.”

                Clint couldn’t help but smile. He gave a soft chuckle, but shut it down before it could become something else. He was terrified of what he’d start saying if he didn’t keep a grip on his emotions. He already felt like shit, his cock hard even though sex was the last thing he actually wanted. And all that movement hadn’t made his stomach feel any better.

                “Hey Tony?” Clint queried quietly. Tony was still kneeling beside him on the floor, ready for whenever the omega wanted to return to his bed. It wasn’t destined to happen. “I’m gonna be sick.”

                It wasn’t an unusual statement. Tony cursed, but he grabbed Clint around the torso with practiced ease, and Clint was sure he used the thrusters to get him into the bathroom. It gave Clint an extra moment to fall to his knees and lift the lid before he started emptying his stomach into the toilet. Clint hadn’t eaten since the night before, so it was only stomach acid that came up in burning, choking mouthfuls. Tony disappeared, and Clint was grateful for a moment alone just to be sick, instead of acting strong and in control. When he’d brought up everything that was going to come up and dry heaved until he thought he was going to pass out, his body finally settled and he felt a little better. He flushed the toilet and managed to lean against the sink, then gave himself a moment to just sit still and feel miserable.

                When he was halfway through his moment, Tony appeared in the doorway, casting a shadow that alerted Clint to his presence. Clint peeled an eye open to see that Tony had taken a moment to remove the iron man suit, and was now dressed in casual slacks and a tshirt. He stood uncertainly in the doorway, just staring at Clint.

                “I’m terrible at this,” Tony told him.

                “No, Steve’s terrible at this.”

                “Yeah?” Tony replied hopefully.

                “Seriously. I don’t know why he has to be right on top of me when I’m throwing up. It’s not like there’s anything he can do to make it better. It’s pretty hard to keep my dignity as it is, without you two watching me spew everywhere, you know?”

                “Speaking of dignity, you ready to get back out of those clothes?”

                “Sure,” Clint laughed, “I guess I shouldn’t get too used to being dressed again. Not like it’s going to happen any time soon.”

                “Shower? After you brush your teeth of course,” Tony offered, but he was already handing Clint his toothbrush and then fiddling with the water on the manual taps. Clint brushed his teeth and spat into the toilet, relieved not to have to leave the floor to do it, and left Tony to babble. “Jarvis is busy, your friend downloaded a nasty virus into his system. He’ll be fine, but he’s got to do a full sweep of his programming. I gotta hand it to her, that girl’s got resources.”

                “You don’t even know,” Clint replied, then put aside his toothbrush. Tony finished fiddling with the water and helped Clint to his feet. The effort of being sick had taken a lot out of Clint, and the best he could do was to use the sink to keep himself standing while Tony helped him out of his boots and pants. Clint was shaking by the time Tony had got them both out of their clothes, and manhandled the omega into the shower.

                There were seats in the shower, but Clint leaned his shaking form against the wall and stood under the spray, letting the water wash away the smell of vomit and sweat, leaving only the smell of heat and exhaustion. Clint’s head was still spinning, so he leaned it against his arms for balance. Tony stepped in a moment later and began washing Clint’s back with the apple scented soap that Clint had come to enjoy. It was soothing, and Clint found himself getting lost in the rhythm.

                “How you doing there, Cupid?” Tony asked, a soft smile on his face. He’d been washing Clint’s back for a full five minutes, and at this point he knew he was basically giving the omega a soapy massage.

                “Mm alright,” Clint mumbled, but didn’t raise his head. Tony chuckled and took the omega by the hips, guiding him to sit on one of the built-in seats. Tony knelt in front of the omega and washed his hair. Seeing him like that, half asleep and nearly defenseless, stirred something in Tony that he wanted to blame entirely on the heat, but couldn’t. Although he was loathe to wake Clint up, he felt like he needed to ask before the moment left them. He felt a little like he was taking advantage, making a request when Clint was so weak.

                “Hey, birdbrain, I need you to promise me something.”

“Yeah?” Clint replied softly. Tony washed his hair with gentle strokes, not daring to look the omega in the eyes.

“If you… If you need to get out of here, get out of this, you’ll tell me? Don’t… Don’t call your old contacts. Don’t go back to that.”

“Tony… I didn’t call Widow. She found me on her own.”

“Yeah, I know,” Tony told him, but he didn’t sound convinced at all. “But if you need to, for any reason, just ask me, okay? I’ll get you out, no questions asked.”

“That’s…” Clint started, but either thought better of it, or just ran out of energy. “Thanks, man. You’re a good guy.”

“Yeah, you and Steve are probably the only ones think that,” Tony tried to joke, but Clint didn’t laugh. Tony finished washing Clint’s hair and tipped Clint’s head back against the wall, then used a detachable showerhead to rinse the soap away. When he finished and Clint opened his eyes, they were bright, and Tony wasn’t sure how to react.

“Will you keep me?” Clint pleaded, “After this? After the heat? I’ll… I can be whatever you want.”

Tony had known this was coming. He and Steve had talked about it, before they’d agreed to take on another omega. They’d talked to Bruce about the psychological factors of a heat, and even Coulson had tried to warn them. But talking about it, and having Clint actually ask, were two entirely different things. Tony swallowed, because he wanted nothing more than to promise the omega the moon. And being the grownup in situations was not his strong suit.

“Don’t ask me that,” Tony begged. “It’s just the heat talking. You don’t want this.”

“I know you have Steve,” Clint continued, like he hadn’t even heard Tony, “I know he’s amazing, and I’ll never compare. But, you could just keep me, you know? I’ll go through more heats, be available for you and Steve. I don’t take up much space.”

And that statement, more than anything, let Tony know that he couldn’t promise anything to Clint. Not that he would agree to anything without consulting Steve- that just seemed like a recipe for broken hearts. But if he agreed to anything now, Clint would always see himself as an interloper, an outsider that was only kept around out of pity. And that was so far from the truth.

“You deserve so much more than that,” Tony told him fiercely, “You deserve to love the person… or people you’re with. In heat and out of it. You’re amazing. I want you to have that.”

Clint took that in for a moment, and while he didn’t seem convinced, Tony was happy that at least he didn’t break down in tears.

                “Will you fuck me at least?” Clint asked. Tony could tell that he was disappointed, but he kissed the omega gently and promised himself that he’d make it up to their archer.

                “I think we can do that.”

                The rest of the shower passed in a blur for Clint, and he was pretty sure Tony carried him back to the bedroom, but thankfully he was too out of it to remember that. He came around with Tony leaning over him, kissing his chest.

                “Don’t tease me,” Clint panted. He was already hard, his ass wet. Tony’s tongue on his chest, licking from his pecs down to his abs, seared across his skin, made him arch with pleasure.

                “Demanding,” Tony replied, but Clint knew he liked having a pushy omega. He’d said it enough.

                Apparently Tony was in an indulgent mood, because he pulled back and put Clint’s legs on his shoulders , bending the omega nearly in half. Clint cried out as Tony’s cock slid into him, pleasure piercing through his body.

                “Is that what you want?” Tony asked.

                “Damn you,” Clint growled, “Don’t make me beg! Just give it to me!”

                That was all it took to get Tony wound up. Hell, he’d been half-wild from Clint’s pheromones anyway. He pounded the omega beneath him, sitting tall on his knees and snapping his hips against Clint’s pert ass. Clint moaned, fisting his own cock and stroking just as fervently as Tony was fucking him. It was painfully few minutes before Clint was screaming as Tony thrust his knot inside. The feel of Tony’s knot inside him forced Clint’s orgasm, and he screamed out his completion as he spurted across his chest, and then promptly passed out.

                Tony smiled, completely unsurprised that Clint had passed out. Without dislodging his knot, he carefully let Clint’s legs down and turned the omega to his side. He settled behind him, prepared to sleep while they waited out his knot. Before he slipped to sleep, though, he made sure to snag Clint’s IV line and reattach it. Clint needed the fluids, especially since he’d vomited again, and the mild painkillers in the solution would help keep him asleep. Once Clint was taken care of and tucked in, Tony curled protectively around the omega and fell asleep as well.

                When Steve slipped into the bed hours later, freshly showered but looking exhausted, Clint didn’t even stir. Steve kissed Tony passionately over Clint’s head, and Tony knew before they even parted that Steve had good news.

                “You catch her?” Tony asked as Steve slipped under the covers and spooned behind him. Steve was wet from the shower, wearing only a pair of boxers.

                “No,” Steve said, but he was smiling, “but I convinced her not to go back to her handlers. She’s going to hole up until Clint’s done with his heat. If we can bring through okay, she said she’d join up with SHIELD.”

                “That’s a bit of a risk, don’t you think?” Tony asked, checking on Clint’s IV line as he spoke, making sure the omega hadn’t dislodged it in his sleep.

                “I don’t think she’ll run. If she was worried enough about him to try this half-baked attempt at a rescue, then she’s not going to abandon him.”

                “He asked me if we’d keep him,” Tony admitted. Steve stilled.

                “And?”

                “And nothing, I didn’t promise him anything,” Tony growled. Steve calmed, pulling Tony into his arms.

                “You did the right thing,” he assured. “I know that was hard. Honestly, I don’t know what I would have done. But I’m glad you decided to wait.” Steve kissed him on the temple. “When the heat is over and the pheromones have cleared, then we can talk.”

                “Talk?”

                “About… us. About our relationship. And about… him,” Steve promised. “You know I love you, right?”

                “You’re not leaving me, are you? Because I will buy SHIELD and make you stay my mate.”

                “No, Tony,” Steve laughed. “How do you even get that from me saying I love you?”

                “I don’t know,” Tony said, then paused and looked at Clint in his arms. “Do you think we’re doing the right thing, waiting?”

                “I don’t think we have a choice,” Steve replied, and reached over Tony to stroke a hair out of Clint’s face. “None of us are thinking clearly right now, especially not him. Making any plans right now would be taking advantage.”

                “You’re always right,” Tony complained. “Can’t we just take the easy route?”

                “We’re heroes,” Steve reminded him. “We don’t take the easy route.”

                “Steve?”

                “Yeah?”

                “I love you too.”

                “I know.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, that's probably going to be it for a couple weeks. I'm going on vacation (yay! but no internet, boo!) so I won't be able to write. Let me know what you guys think. Also, I know in the early chapters I introduced Steve as an omega-turned-alpha. I did it because I liked the idea of him being both genders, and I thought it would be nice for him to have some insight into where Clint's coming from, and I thought it would be hot. But it hasn't really gone anywhere or done anything since I introduced it. So, do you think I should dump it? I mean, it's not really doing anything either way. I don't have any real plans for it in the upcoming chapters, but if it doesn't feel too out of place, I'll probably leave it in. Let me know what you think! Thanks so much!


	18. Chapter 18

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys, we're starting to wrap it up! Hope you like this chapter! If you haven't checked it out yet, bounce back to chapter 15 and take a look - it's a late add on that I think you'll like!
> 
> Just a heads up, this story isn't going to have Thorki (Lor?) in it. I love Thor/Loki, but I wanted to go somewhere else with this fic, so I hope nobody is too upset. I was considering adding a couple chapters of prequel to show Loki's heat with Steve and Tony, though, so let me know if you're interested in that. Otherwise, I've got a couple other stories bouncing around, a Buffy fic and a couple originals. Take a look if you get a chance, please? Also, I'm thinking about doing an original fic next, so let me know if there's anything you guys want to see me do, you know? 
> 
> Alright, sorry, I'll get out of the way. Thanks for reading! Let me know what you think!

                Clint’s heats continued to get more frequent. Steve and Tony began to rotate turns with Clint, who needed serviced every few hours. Although Tony couldn’t provide the amount of hormones Clint needed, he was still a welcome distraction for the desperate omega, keeping Clint from driving himself mad if Steve was unavailable. Steve could take more turns than Tony, with his superhuman stamina, but Tony was there to give him breaks whenever he could.

Still, the constant sex was wearing on both heroes, although not as much as it was on Clint. Bruce ran more blood tests, but he was helpless to stop the cycle that Clint’s body was stuck in. His only hope, the doctor assured, was to flood his body with alpha hormones and pray that Clint’s body eventually realized that it was full and stopped looking for sex.

                When Steve pulled out of Clint and could only make it across the room before the omega was crying out for him, he knew they were in trouble.

                “Bring him downstairs,” Bruce told him through the vidscreen. He was already wearing a scent-cancelling mask. Steve hefted Clint in his arms, struggling to keep the omega off of his cock. “Lab C is ready for you.”

                “Is that really necessary?”

                “Unless you want to take him to a hospital. Have a fun ambulance ride, naked and testicles deep in Clint.”

                “Alright, I understand. I’ll be down in ten.”

                It only took two minutes to get to the lab from Clint’s bedroom, but it took Steve a full eight minutes to get Clint to cooperate. Steve ended up carrying the omega over his shoulder, one hand wrapped securely around the man’s waist as he struggled, the other holding Clint’s IV.

                Downstairs, one of the labs had been converted to a medical room. One corner had been dedicated to an oversized mattress on the floor, made of thick, soft material. The rest of the room housed various emergency medical equipment that Steve was not familiar with, but Bruce seemed at home amongst. Steve settled Clint on the mattress, peeling his hands away as the omega clung and writhed against him. It was hard for Steve to see Clint like this, with nearly nothing of their mouthy archer left in his consciousness. The need had completely taken over.

When he was free, Steve turned to Dr. Banner, who was monitoring Clint’s vitals through JARVIS on one of the many computers in the room.

“So, what’s our plan?” Steve asked, ignoring the mewling noises Clint was making behind him. Luckily, Clint was too weak to stand and come after him. As long as Steve could keep him from tumbling off the mattress, Clint was pretty much stationary.

                Bruce looked grim, glancing over Clint’s stats with a critical eye, and then sighed.

                “There is no plan, Cap. Carry on carrying on, you know? All we can do is keep giving him hormones, and hope his heat breaks before your stamina does.”

                “That’s… Seriously? That’s all we’ve got.”

                “I’m sorry,” Bruce said, and he truly sounded remorseful. “Clint’s got a nasty cocktail of drugs in his system, as well as his biology is working against itself. If he could get pregnant, this could all stop, but since he’s sterile that’s not likely to happen. Fact is, without you he would have died that first day.”

                “I know,” Steve said, and rubbed at his temples. He felt guilty for implying that Dr. Banner wasn’t doing everything in his power to help Clint. Bruce had made sure to keep himself at the tower for the last month to help monitor Clint, and now he was on constant alert in case something went drastically wrong. Steve knew from experience that sometimes bad things happened to good people. It wasn’t always fair. “I’m sorry, I’m just…”

                “Do you need Tony to come give you a break?” Bruce offered. “He’s in the lab.”

                “No, give him another hour. Is he working on another modification to Clint’s bow?” Steve asked. Since Clint had taken a turn for the worse, Tony had become obsessed with making him a better bow. It was a typical reaction for Tony. When something was beyond his control, he retreated to the lab and built his way around it. Too bad there wasn’t anything he could build to make Clint better.

                “Arrows, I think. Something about long range homing capabilities.”

                Steve would have asked more about Tony’s project, but a howl from behind told Steve that Clint was done waiting. Steve turned quickly, just in time to see Clint roll off the bed, his IV line tangling under him. Steve dashed toward him, but the pained yelp Clint gave told Steve that he was already too late. When he got to the bed, he was unsurprised to find Clint’s arm bleeding sluggishly. Bruce handed him a sterile pad, already prepared and just a step behind him. Steve applied pressure for several minutes, then Bruce covered the wound. Steve sighed, dreading the part that came next. Setting Clint’s IV was far worse than dealing with the aftermath, especially since all the best veins had already been damaged, so Bruce had been forced to travel farther up Clint’s arm to less-easily accessed veins.

                “I think we should skip it,” Bruce recommended.

                “You don’t think he needs it?”

                “I think it would be better if he had it, but I don’t think he’ll leave it in at this stage, and I hesitate to cause any more damage to his arms.”

                Steve couldn’t help but agree. Clint’s arms were already covered in bruises and scabs from nearly wrist to elbow. Steve cringed at the damage, and knowing that there was little he could have done differently did nothing to assuage his guilt.

                “Alright. Is there anything different now that we’re down here?” Steve asked. “Because it really sounds like I could have stayed in the bedroom.”

                “I know it might seem like that,” Bruce argued, “but I really want to have him near the medical equipment for now. At this stage, if he should go into respiratory or cardiac distress we might only have a few minutes to get him stabilized. Carrying him down the stairs or carrying the equipment up to him might mean the difference between life and death.”

                “I understand,” Steve said gravely, grasping the logic that Bruce was using. What had seemed useless before now sounded like a solid strategy, and Steve wondered if he really was getting too tired, because he should have seen it that way from the start. “Is there anything else?” Steve asked, because Clint was struggling under his hands again, and Steve hoped to get him knotted again before the omega could get himself worked up.

                “If he doesn’t regain lucidity in an hour, we’ll have to get him to drink some water or reset the IV. I don’t want him going longer than that without fluids. His fever is being closely monitored and it’s staying steady at 101, so that’s as good as can be expected. Just try to be gentle with him,” Bruce cautioned. “I know he’s desperate, and I know omega bodies are designed to take this kind of stress during heat, but do what you can to go easy on him. It was never meant to last this long.”

                “I know,” Steve reminded him, but it came out with a frustrated sigh. “He doesn’t make it easy to be gentle, though,” Steve reminded, and as if on cue, Clint thrust his pelvis a Steve, not having the strength to actually cross the distance to the alpha, although it was mere inches. “I don’t ever remember having a heat like this,” Steve said, and it wasn’t really a slip, because Bruce knew about the experiment that had turned Steve from an omega to an alpha super-soldier, but Bruce doubted Steve would have made that kind of comment if he’d been thinking more clearly. Steve didn’t really talk about the experiment.

                “You wouldn’t,” Bruce told him gently, trying his best to be sympathetic. “Like I said, it’s not supposed to be like this. What would be the point of a heat, if it killed the omega? The point of a heat is to procreate, and a species would never survive if it expended this kind of energy every time it tried to have one offspring. Clint’s sick and in heat. It just so happens that the cause is also the cure in this case. Break the heat, and Clint can get better.”

                “I only hope we can,” Steve said, and then the doctor was forgotten as he climbed onto the mattress with Clint. Modestly was a thing of the past now. Steve had quickly gotten used to being naked almost all the time. Out of necessity he’d gotten used to breeding Clint with Bruce in the vicinity. Now he was just too exhausted to care. If Bruce had wanted to actively watch, Steve would have told him to grab a chair and then ignored him. He just didn’t have the energy to worry about more than Clint.

                Clint’s arms went around his neck, and the omega’s pelvis immediately shifted to line up with Steve’s cock. Steve held in a sigh. It wasn’t that he didn’t feel pleasure from sex with Clint anymore. It was that it had stopped being fun. Lucid Clint would never just jump right into the act, he was full of quips and attitude, and even quick sex was at least interesting. Now, even as Steve thrust into the moaning omega beneath him, it all felt stilted and mechanical. Steve tried not to think that Clint might never go back to that sassy, mouthy omega again.

                Twelve hours later, six knots from Cap, three knots from Tony, and ten bouts of struggling to get Clint to drink water, and there was still no signs of slowing down from the omega. The heat had yet to break, and it was starting to seem like Steve might crack first.

                “How much longer?” Bruce asked. Steve and Clint had been tied for about twenty minutes. Clint was sleeping soundly under Steve, with Steve’s knot still buried in the omega. It was about the only time he could sleep, when he was stuck on Steve’s knot. The rest of the time he was writhing and moaning helplessly, trying to get any alpha in the vicinity to mount him. Steve tried to keep him knotted as long as possible, giving him a little much-needed rest and respite, but it was getting harder and harder to maintain his knot for any period of time.

                “Any minute now,” Steve admitted. He could already feel the knot shrinking and shifting inside Clint’s body. Usually Steve could tie for a good hour or more, but the constant sex with Clint had taken its toll on his stamina.

                “Can you hold him up, Steve? I want to check his opening,” Bruce asked. The beta adjusted his scent-canceling mask and donned a pair of thick medical gloves in preparation for touching the omega-pheromone-bomb that was Clint. The gloves could come off when he wasn’t directly touching Clint. The mask, they had learned, had to stay on if he was within three floors of the omega.

                Steve didn’t hesitate to roll them over, both naked and covered in semen from two recent bouts of sex. He pulled Clint onto his lap, then pulled the omega’s knees up to expose where they were tied. Bruce approached carefully, knowing that Steve was out of it and that alphas didn’t like to have anyone mess with their omegas when they were tied and vulnerable. It wasn’t the first time Bruce had approached the two during this heat, but he liked to be careful. One wrong move could force the alpha to lash out at him, and that would be disastrous for them all if the Hulk woke up. Still, Bruce doubted that anyone one else, other than Tony, would be able to get this close to Steve and Clint while the heat still raged.

                Steve didn’t flinch when he felt Bruce’s fingers brush his cock, or when he felt the doctor adjust Clint’s leg so that he could see the omega’s opening better. Steve leaned his head against Clint’s neck and breathed in the omega’s smell, trying to ignore the scents of sickness and distress. The feel of Clint’s steady heartbeat against his cheek soothed him, and he ignored Bruce’s prodding.

                Of course, Bruce would have much preferred to examine Clint after Steve’s knot had dissipated, but they knew from experience that they had precious minutes between the knot being gone and Clint losing control of his body. The one time they’d tried to hold him down for an exam, Clint had screamed through the entire procedure, biting and scratching and Steve and Tony. The whole thing had been too traumatizing for the alphas, and though Bruce doubted that Clint would even remember, he was loathe to endure it again.

                Seconds after Steve shifted them, his knot popped free of the omega, sending a gush of slick and semen raining over Bruce’s gloves. Bruce made a distasteful face behind the mask, grateful that Steve couldn’t see it. Steve hoisted Clint a bit higher, freeing up his entrance for Bruce’s questing fingers. There were no signs of blood or tearing. Bruce wasn’t surprised, but he was amazed once again at how controlled Steve was, to be able to knot his omega so many times without hurting him. Still, Clint’s opening was raw and inflamed, and while Bruce knew that the omega biology would shut down the pain receptors to that part of the body, he didn’t like how much Clint was chaffing. With a sigh, Bruce smeared an anti-inflammatory and antibiotic ointment around Clint’s opening and pulled back. Clint was already starting to stir and groan. Bruce signaled Steve and he let the omega’s legs down, putting Clint on his side on the mattress.

                Then Steve rose and padded toward the other side of the room. Bruce resisted the urge to flick a sheet over Clint’s naked form, knowing that Clint would simply tangle himself in it. He moved away from Clint and busied himself with checking Clint’s stats on his tablet. On the other side of the room, Steve was drinking water in long, thirsty gulps, spilling it down his front as he drained one bottle, then a second. All the necessities for Steve had been stocked in a small, well-used cabinet- bottled water, protein bars, towelettes and towels for quick clean up. It wasn’t quite like having a shower, but at least he could wash the worst of the fluids away. The prepackaged, wet towels that Bruce had ordered were moistened with an unscented cleaning fluid, and they wouldn’t irritate his skin or Clint’s even with repeated use. He wiped his genitals first, then his neck and armpits, anywhere alpha scent would build up. By the time he was finished, he had just enough time to swallow a protein bar and gulp down another bottle of water before Clint was stirring.

                “Steve?” Clint called.

The next step would be apologies, then begging, then screaming. It was always the same order, always the same words. Like they were stuck in a loop.

                “M sorry,” Clint’s voice came, and it had the slurred sound that told Steve that it was just echoes, the hazy mumbling of half-lucid. Still, the words pierced Steve, even as he struggled to ignore them. “I’d never shoot Tony. Others, so many others dead, not him.”

                “It’s okay,” Steve called, kicking himself for whatever thoughtless act had left Clint thinking that he was still mad about the incident with Black Widow. He knew it wouldn’t matter, though. His words, his actions, nothing calmed Clint. He took another long drink of water, reluctant to return to the mattress, uncertain if his body could rise to the task again already.

                “Please, I’ll do anything,” Clint begged. “I promise I wasn’t going to hurt Tony…”

                Steve found himself at the side of the mattress, sighing as he lowered himself and pulled Clint into his embrace. He had hoped that his presence might let Clint settle back to sleep, but the omega was relentless. His hand reached for Steve’s cock immediately, and Steve closed his eyes and let the omega stroke him. When nothing happened, Clint’s mouth found its way to Steve’s cock, determinedly sucking him to hardness. The moment Steve’s cock was engorged enough for penetration, Clint mounted, driving himself down on Steve’s cock with rabid enthusiasm. Steve let him go, let the omega fuck himself on the alpha’s cock, feeling a bit like a living sex toy. For once, he was glad Tony wasn’t an omega, wouldn’t need to use him for heats. But he knew that this wasn’t a normal heat, and he felt guilty for blaming Clint.

                Steve didn’t move until he was about to orgasm, and then only to grab Clint and yank him down hard, ensuring that his knot was buried inside the omega. He wouldn’t have been so pushy, but he was fairly certain that his body wouldn’t knot if he wasn’t inside of an omega. He was just too exhausted.

                “I don’t know how much longer I can do this,” Steve admitted softly when Clint sagged against him, already asleep. His voice carried to Bruce on the other side of the room.

                “What other choice do you have?” Bruce asked, but they both knew the answer. If Steve broke before Clint did, the omega would die. Steve clutched Clint a bit tighter, and mentally begged for help.

                And then Thor was there.

                “I am sorry I was delayed, Steven.”

There was no preamble. No warning from JARVIS, although technically Thor lived there, so there was no reason the alarms would go off when he entered the building. He was in his Asguardian gear, not the typical jeans and printed T-shirts that he favored on earth. His hammer was gone, probably already stored in his room. He clutched only a vial of pale blue liquid, and looked curiously at the man in Steve’s arms. He didn’t seem fazed by Steve’s nudity or the fact that he was tied with an equally nude omega man, and Tony had obviously informed him of the omega when he’d requested that Thor come home.

Still, Thor’s sudden appearance would have been shocking, had Steve not been so grateful for another super-alpha that could help Clint. They’d done tests when Thor had asked for help with Loki, and it had been revealed that all Asguardians had the same hormone levels as Steve.

It made Steve a viable mate for Loki.

It made Thor a viable mate for Clint.

“I’m glad you made it,” Steve replied. It was a drastic understatement of how he felt, but he was too exhausted to word it better. He’d have Tony buy something expensive for Thor, once this was all over. If things went well. If not… Well, he couldn’t bring himself to think about if not.

“When I learned of the nature of your emergency,” Thor continued, and Steve accepted his input as he would during any other battle. “I stopped to ask my brother for his advice. He sent this potion, which he said helped him with strength and clarity while in heat.”

                “I don’t know,” Bruce protested, accepting Thor just as readily but still eyeing the liquid suspiciously. “Wasn’t your brother a trickster? The last thing we need is something that makes Clint sicker.”

                “I understand your concern, however, my brother is also what you call an omega, so I believe he feels empathy for your archer. Still, I had the same inclination, so I tested the potion on myself while I traveled here. There were no ill effects, and I felt slightly calmer. I hope it will have a stronger effect on a mortal. Loki assured me that it was formulated with a mortal omega in mind.”

                “Loki was mischievous, but he wasn’t that cruel,” Steve added, and took the potion from Thor. “If it can help Clint through this, it’s worth a shot.”

                But getting Clint to drink the liquid posed a problem. Clint was still out of it, swinging from barely lucid to thrashing with little provocation. He hadn’t been able to hold any food down in nearly a day, and Bruce commented that he might bring the potion back up. They’d been drugging his water with nausea medication, and even then it was a close call. Anything stronger might be too much for his weakened digestive system.

                “The potion has magical qualities and my brother has been through a heat of his own,” Thor countered. “I doubt he would forget to plan for such an instance.”

                Bruce looked skeptical again, but kept his doubts to himself. Steve eased Clint into a sitting position and helped hold his head up. Bruce took the potion from Thor, and then poured it into Clint’s mouth a few drops at a time. Thor did not approach as Bruce fed Clint the liquid, and it was probably for the best. Steve wasn’t sure how he’d react to another alpha, even an alien one, while he was still tied. It took Clint longer than it should have to swallow, but as Thor predicted he didn’t bring any of the potion back up.

It took nearly half an hour to get all of the liquid into Clint, but by the end his complexion was already looking better. In another half an hour, his bruising had begun to fade, his fever had dropped, and his eyes were focusing more clearly than they had in the last few days. When Steve’s knot released him, Clint whined pitifully, but didn’t chase the alpha. Steve took it as a huge success.

                But the potion’s success didn’t make it any easier when Thor stepped forward and offered his arms for Clint.

                “Go,” he told Steve, firmly but not unkindly. It was the way a soldier might talk to Steve in the field, when the battle was getting too dangerous and they needed to retreat. “I will take over from here while you rest, my friend.”

                Steve nodded, but his hands stroked over Clint’s arm for a moment, hesitant to let the omega go. Rationally, Steve knew that Thor had a lot better chance of bringing Clint through this, with his alien physiology and the fact that he was well rested when compared with Steve. But Steve had been mating with Clint for almost a month, and it was harder than Steve had anticipated, letting someone else take over. If it hadn’t been Thor, or if Steve hadn’t known Thor so well, there probably would have been violence.

                “Clint,” Steve called softly, and was pleased and amazed to see Clint’s eyes drift to his face. “I’m going to hand you off to Thor now, do you understand? He’s going to help you through the rest of your heat.”

                Clint closed his eyes and licked his lips, and where Steve had been expecting no reply, Clint said, “Had enough of me, Cap?” in a dry, cracked, wonderful-sounding voice. It was the first lucid words Clint had spoken in nearly two days.

                “Not nearly,” Steve replied, and was appalled to find his voice nearly cracking. For the first time in seventeen hours, Steve felt like they might actually get Clint through this. “You’re more than I can handle. Tony would be so proud.”

                Clint laughed although it came out sounding more like a cough. When his humor faded, his face became grave.

                “Can you tell Tony I’m sorry,” Clint started, but had to clear his throat, his voice was so raw from screaming. “Tell him I’m sorry about aiming a gun at him? It wasn’t… I shouldn’t have done that. And tell him thanks… for loaning me his mate, and for being so nice. And… thanks. For… you know.”

                “Clint,” Steve said, his voice soft and confused. “I… This isn’t the last time we’re going to see each other,” Steve assured.

                “I know,” Clint whispered. “But it feels like it.”

                And apparently that was all he words the omega had, because his eyes slipped closed, and he laid his head back against Steve’s shoulder. Steve tried to keep his disappointment in check. Clint’s recovery had been amazing, it would be tempting fate to ask for more. Still, Steve had felt a brief flutter of hope that he potion might have broken Clint’s heat completely, but that didn’t seem to be the case. Steve sighed and nuzzled Clint’s neck, breathing in the omega’s pheromones and listening to the steady sound of Clint’s heart. When Thor approached, Steve pulled back reluctantly, but knowing in his core that it was the right thing to do.

                “Be careful with him,” Steve cautioned. “He’s been sick for a while now. This heat has lasted longer than it should.”

                “Have no fear, friend. I will treat him with delicacy and respect.”

                “I know, I just want to make sure you understand how weak he is right now. He might not even be able to tell you if you’re hurting him.”

                “Mayhap I did not hear you correctly,” Thor said, and his voice was deadly serious. “It seemed as though you implied that I do not know how to treat a lover.”

                And Steve was pretty dazed by Clint’s pheromones, but even he realized that he had made a mistake, and in no way did he want to offend the god-prince.

                “I’m sorry,” he apologized, rubbing his face with one hand while still supporting Clint with the other. “It’s been a long heat, and we humans get territorial. I didn’t mean anything by it.”

                Thor seemed to accept this, and Steve was grateful, because he wasn’t sure he could hold his own in a fistfight at the moment. Still, the demigod looked troubled.

                “I am confused. I do not wish to come between you, but I though the archer was not your true love? I thought you were devoted to the man of iron?”

                “No, he’s… it’s complicated. Humans form attachments during heat, it’s all pheromones and chemistry. It… it doesn’t always last.”

                “I understand. You were very kind to my brother, and he remembers you fondly. It’s the only reason he would give me his strength potion. But come, I can tell that you are weary. Give me the archer, and I will care for him as you cared for my brother. I will treat him as something precious.”

                Steve nodded, trusting that Thor would take care of Clint. He’d never doubted the thunder god’s honor, or he wouldn’t have called him in the first place. Still, it was difficult to place the omega in Thor’s arms after caring for him for so long. It was even harder to drag himself out of the room, knowing that another alpha (or alien equivalent of) would be taking his place. His only consolation was to finally find Tony and drag him away from his experiments. Steve knew that he’d been sorely neglecting his mate while they had serviced their omega. It would feel good to finally curl around his alpha lover and rest without omega pheromones waking him up. He wondered, as he padded out, if he’d miss Clint’s smell.

                In Thor’s arms, Clint stirred and roused himself. Loki’s potion was clearing his head and making him feel stronger. Still, he felt as weak as a kitten in the demigod’s arms, his head resting on bicep muscles the size of his thigh. The flesh beneath him was hard as a rock, and it felt like steel shifting under flesh as the man moved.

                “You can probably take him upstairs,” Bruce offered as Thor cast a leery look at Clint’s mattress. “His fever just dropped two degrees and his heartbeat is steading, plus he’s a good bit more lucid. I think it’s safe to say that Loki’s medicine is helping.”

                “Thank you,” Thor said gratefully, immediately shifting Clint and moving toward the door to the lab. Clint looked at his surroundings curiously. He barely remembered this room, and despite the fact that it was saturated in his scent it wasn’t familiar to him at all. He was just as eager as Thor to leave, looking with alarm at the various medical equipment. “We will retire to my room.”

                “Be careful,” Bruce warned. “He’s weak and his balance is off. He could easily fall off the bed. Make sure he drinks plenty of fluids. Dehydration is a big concern.”

                “Of course,” Thor replied, and then he carried Clint out of the room. Clint thought he must have passed out again, because the next thing he knew was in Thor’s room, sitting on a sofa, looking about himself at a room that looked a bit like a cross between a swanky hotel room and medieval castle. The floors and walls were done in dark, stained wood, with gray stone trim and a matching fireplace. One side of the room held glass doors leading out onto a balcony, the only thing in the room that looked a bit too modern to be natural. There were several couches around the fireplace, including the one Clint was resting on, and a glance over his shoulder revealed a large, canopied bed and a full bar on the other side of the room. There were two wooden doors in the room, each on a different wall, one most likely leading to the rest of the floor, and the other likely to lead to the bathroom.

                On cue Thor appeared from the room that Clint assumed was the bathroom, confirming Clint’s guess with the lack of shirt. Clint stared at the amount of muscle that was revealed with more than a hint of trepidation. Steve was muscled, but not like this guy. And, in Clint’s experience, big alphas usually had bad tempers and little patience. Not to mention that the guy was an alien and a prince. With those shining gold locks and his antiquated language, Clint didn’t have the slightest idea how to handle Thor. Or what the man would act like once they started getting into it.

                But Thor didn’t seem aggressive as he padded over to Clint. The area with the fireplace was in a half circle that was lower than the rest of the room, giving it a feeling of separation from the rest of the layout. There was a real fire burning in the fireplace, and Clint suddenly noticed the scent of cherry wood burning. Thor threw another log onto the flames before turning and offering a hand to Clint.

                “Would you care to bathe, archer? You’re… ah… rather saturated with the evidence of lovemaking. I would… prefer that the evidence were not so… blatant.”

                “Yeah, alright,” Clint agreed. He was pretty sure Thor had just told him he was rank with the spunk of other alphas, but he didn’t know the guy well enough to call him out on it.

“Come, we shall make use of the heated rain box in my quarters. Your Man of Iron taught me its secrets, and now I shall share them with you.”

Clint didn’t know if Thor would be offended by being laughed at, so he held his tongue as Thor helped him to his feet. He was grateful that Thor didn’t try to carry him again. It felt like Clint’s strength was returning, and he was glad for the chance to walk by himself, even if the stairs nearly tripped him and Thor had to practically drag him up then. Clint was half afraid that Thor would get impatient and throw him over his muscular shoulder, but the other man simply offered a strong arm to guide and words of encouragement.

“You’re not… what I thought you’d be like,” Clint said as Thor helped him through the doorway into a large, lavish bathroom. It was brightly lit, complete with another couch-like seat, an in-suite Jacuzzi, and a shower that could fit five men. The shower was already running, but Thor didn’t seem in a hurry to use it, and leaned against the granite sink to peer at Clint.

“You are not what I expected either. I was led to believe that the omega was a frail, delicate creature,” Thor said, and his voice was gentle, but Clint felt a stab of humiliation. The urge was there to cover himself, to try to hide his scars and his muscles, but he simply stared back at the other man, unwilling to show weakness. It was only a second, barely a heartbeat before Thor continued. “I was most pleased to find you were trained as a warrior. I come from a race of warriors, where most men and women train for battle. Although we have maintained peace for many years, we still prize strength and skill.”

He approached Clint slowly, broadcasting his movements before he made them. Clint wanted to be annoyed – it had just been pointed out that he wasn’t fragile – but it seemed more like something that Thor was doing out of respect to another warrior. Thor’s fingers traced along Clint’s arm, brushing along corded muscle and resting on one of the uglier scars that dotted the archer’s arms.

“In my race, we have no alphas or omegas,” Thor continued, and his fingers became bolder, trailing up Clint’s arm to his collar bone. “Gender is only a choice of male or female, although we may magically change that if we feel the need. There is no shame in two men or two women being lovers. We love freely, and eventually find one person to spend our lives with, a person whose strengths and ideologies match with our own. But we find strength and conviction most appealing in a potential lover. We look for bodies that are honed by their craft, that are tested in battle. We find battle scars most… appealing.”

Well. That was new.

“Wait, you actually like the way I look?” Clint asked. Because, fuck it, of course he’d be considered hot on another planet.

“Most certainly. I was pleased to see that you were not slim or soft as many of the omegas on this planet. You are...” Thor hesitated, ghosting his fingers down Clint’s chest and across his abs. Clint’s ribs were more defined than he liked them, his abs a bit more lean than he liked,“… a bit frail, but they tell me that you have been ill. Loki’s potion has been aiding already, and I believe you will recover quickly once we cure you of this temperature illness.”

“Heat.”

“What?”

“It’s called heat. Not… it’s not about temperature.”

“I see,” Thor replied, but it was obvious that he didn’t. Still, he withdrew his fingers and stepped back from Clint. “Can I assume you are attracted to me as well?”

“Dude, really?” Clint scoffed. The last thing he needed was a demi-god with a complex. “Have you looked at yourself?”

“I am aware of what I look like. I am rather larger than most of your… alphas, I think you call them.”

“Yeah, that’s a good thing. Alphas are supposed to be buff.”

“Is that what you look for in a lover?” Thor asked, and the question threw Clint a bit. He’d never really looked for a lover before. Either it had been some drunk run-in outside of heat, or it wasn’t a choice at all because he was in heat. Still, casting a glance over Thor’s form again, the omega knew that he’d pick the man if he had the choice. No question.

“Yeah, I find you attractive.”

“Excellent,” Thor said and grinned, “then we may continue our tryst. First a shower.”

Clint nodded, and Thor helped him into the shower before leaving his pants and entering behind the omega. Clint enjoyed the spray for several minutes as Thor set to work helping him wash. Clint hadn’t been this clean in days, along with the sudden relief that Loki’s potion was giving him, it felt like he’d finally found a light at the end of the tunnel. As Thor’s hands continued to slide along his body, slick with soap and dragging a soft rag across his skin, Clint found his cock taking an interest before his heat demanded it. Clint leaned back against Thor, feeling evidence of the other man’s interest against his back. He groaned as Thor threw the rag aside and grabbed him by the hips, gently nibbling at Clint’s neck. Soon, Clint was turning to face the larger man, and found his eyes gravitating to Thor’s groin.

Thor’s cock was unlike any Clint had ever seen. In length it was comparable to Steve’s, although even there Clint thought that Thor might have him beat by a hair’s breadth. In thickness, Thor’s cock wasn’t twice as thick, but it was definitely rounder than Steve’s, with a few veins on the underside visible to the naked eye on the god’s engorged shaft. But the strangest thing about it was that, despite the size and thickness of the shaft, there was no knot at all. The shaft was completely straight, save perhaps for a natural curve to it, until it disappeared into a nest of thick blonde curls and heavy, dangling testicles.

                Clint had been with betas before. Outside of heat, betas liked to be with omegas as a status symbol, even though it was unlikely that they could get one pregnant. Inside of heat, there were lots of betas willing to take advantage of an omega in heat, although betas weren’t affected by the omega’s pheromones to the same extent that an alpha was. Beyond that, Clint’s own cock was unknotted, just like all omegas.

                But beta and omega cocks were nowhere near as long or broad as an alpha’s, and Thor’s was considered big even for an alpha. It was strange to see such a cock without a knot at the base. Even more odd was the fact that Clint found himself growing hard just looking at Thor’s shaft. Clint couldn’t help but find a cock that size without a knot… strangely erotic.

                He found his fingers tracing the other man’s length, feeling the soft skin over rigid flesh. It was physical proof that Thor had not been lying when he’d complimented Clint, and Clint found that he didn’t know how to feel about that. He stopped trying to sort his feelings when Thor stepped close, bringing their cocks together and fisting them both. Clint shivered at the feel of it, how erotic it felt for their cocks to slide together without catching on a knot. He moaned and leaned against the shower wall as Thor towered over him, one hand supporting him on the small of his back, the other hand working their cocks simultaneously. Clint thought it might be foreplay, but he could feel that the heat was still a few hours from peaking.

And Thor, it seemed, didn’t feel a need to wait. He stroked their cocks firmly and with purpose, bringing his thumb up to stroke the crown of Clint’s cock, the water making their skin slide together. Thor bracketed Clint with his legs, then leaned in close and nibbled at the omega’s jaw. They were both nearing climax, and Clint couldn’t resist the urge to surge upwards and catch Thor’s lips in a kiss. The thunder god returned the kiss eagerly, and when they climaxed together their lips were still locked passionately. Clint felt rivulets of semen splatter his abdomen, only to be washed away moments later by the water.

                “I am most fortunate to find such a passionate lover,” Thor admitted, a playful smile dancing across his face. “It is few mortals that can stand the passion of an Aesir without flinching.”

                “I’m special that way,” Clint responded, because he really didn’t know what else to say. Thankfully, Thor didn’t seem to be looking for an answer. He was already turning the water off and grabbing a towel. He helped Clint step shakily out of the shower. Clint managed to dry himself, a task that he wouldn’t have accomplished only hours before, and he allowed Thor to guide him into the main room. They settled on the couches, watching the fire crackle. Thor covered Clint in a blanket and made sure he was comfortably settled against the arm of the couch, before settling himself on the other side. It wasn’t as close as Clint was expecting, most alphas wanted to be practically on top of their omega, but it was a comfortable, friendly closeness between them.

                “Where I come from, watching the fire and telling stories is the pass time. We do not have the vision of the Tele, so we must entertain each other. I hope, when you are well, you will regale me with tales of your battles, and I would be honored if you would hear of mine. Tonight, though, you should rest and recover your strength.”

                They were silent for several minutes, with only the crackling of the fire. Clint told himself to go to sleep, to keep his mouth shut. But Clint rarely did what he knew was best for him.

                “So… if there’re no omegas on your planet, what’s up with your brother?” Clint hesitated, then added, “Sorry. That was kind of blunt.”

                “It’s fine. The fact is, my brother was adopted. He comes from a race that does, indeed, have omegas. He was imprisoned after he tried to steal my father’s throne. No Aesir would aid him, and I was forced to hide him here on Midguard while I tried to find someone to relieve his illness. Steve was the only viable candidate, and he graciously offered his services.”

                “So you come from a planet of only alphas, and your brother comes from a place that has only omegas. Seriously? What a weird world.”

                “I do not know that they are only omegas, just that my brother is an omega. He was born as one, and nothing in his magics can change or suppress it.”

                “Sounds familiar,” Clint said dryly. If magic had existed that could have changed his gender, he’d have taken it.

                “I hope that being with you will make amends for my brother’s time of sickness. Although we are not related by blood, I could not bring myself to lie with him. His scent repulsed me, although not your Captain or Man of Iron. I was most grateful to find that you did not give off a similar odor.”

                “Omegas give off a noxious smell to their alpha relatives when they go into heat. It’s to dissuade inbreeding. Sometimes, it happens to close friends or adopted siblings too.” Clint had always wondered what it would be like to have someone he repelled during heat. Being an omega himself, he couldn’t smell anything when Natasha went into heat, and vice versa. And she was the only one close enough that he could consider family.

                “Your doctor told me as much when I brought Loki to him. I had worried that he was lying to spare my brother’s feelings. Either way, Loki took offense. He chose to believe that I would not lower myself to be with a Frost Giant. He still has not forgiven me.”

                “Sounds like an upstanding guy.”

                “My brother has a good heart. Sometimes I wish he would remember that.” Thor leaned forward then and rested his palm against Clint’s forehead. “Your fever seems nearly gone. You should rest.”

                Clint hummed an affirmative, and despite his usual reticence to sleep near strange men, found himself drifting off.

                Clint woke in the throes of heat, knowing that it was time, that it was the last time. Thor was already awake, stroking his fingers along Clint’s shoulder. Thor had shifted closer while Clint slept, but not so close that he was looming. Perhaps it was Thor’s uncontrollable enthusiasm, but Clint couldn’t help feeling relaxed in the thunder god’s presence.

                “How do you feel, archer?” Thor asked upon seeing Clint awake. Clint took stock of himself and was amazed to realize just how well he felt. Not, perhaps, as strong as he had been before the heat had begun, but all of his aches and pains had faded, and he felt pleasantly horny and excited.

                “Good,” he said, then laughed. “Really good. Your brother really is magic, huh?”

                “He’s proven it well enough,” Thor replied, and there was an exasperated tone to his voice that practically screamed annoying-but-loved little brother. “I am glad you feel well.”

                “Fucking amazing is more like it,” Clint said, then wondered if the other man would be offended by his vulgarity, or if he’d even understand Earth curses. If he did, he made no reply. Instead, he rose to his feet and held his out for Clint. Clint wondered if he meant to move them to the bed, and found himself strangely reluctant to leave the intimacy of the hearth.

“Could you stand?” Thor asked, “In my culture, when two warriors couple for the first time, they do so on their feet. If you would allow me, I would like to mate with you in this way.”

Clint grinned, his cock leaping at the suggestion. “Yeah,” he said, “I think I can handle that.”

Thor took his hand and helped him to his feet. Clint swayed unsteadily for a moment before catching his balance. Clint didn’t feel sick, far from it. With the lack of symptoms that he’d been dealing with for the past month, Clint felt nearly drunk. His body responded without any of the protesting aches and pains that he’d been dealing with for the past few weeks, and the change was so sudden that it made him feel off-kilter. When he caught his balance, Thor released Clint and took a step back.

“You look magnificent in the fire light,” Thor complimented.

“You don’t look so bad yourself,” Clint replied, knowing that it was an understatement. The guy was a Norse god, but without his clothes on he still looked like an underwear model. Thor stepped in then and took his lips in another kiss. Clint liked the way his body felt, all rock hard muscle and bulk, but it also left him feeling just the slightest bit intimidated. The man had everything on him – height, weight, strength, hell, even cock length. Clint liked him, but he barely knew him. And they were about to fuck.

But the heat wasn’t going to let Clint be timid. Another surge of heat in his belly, his hot cock pulsing between them, and Clint knew he was wet and ready. Clint moaned as Thor broke away and backed Clint toward the wall. When he was against the wall beside the fireplace, Thor kissed him again. Then Thor turned him to face the wall, bending Clint easily until the omega’s shoulders were flush with the wall. Clint felt a surge of panic as Thor loomed over him and lined his shaft with Clint’s hole.

“No, wait…” Clint protested, but Thor was already behind him, leaning over him, and Clint couldn’t help the elbow that shot out and jabbed the other man in the ribs. Thor grunted and fell back a step, releasing Clint instantly. Clint turned and backed away, eyeing Thor hesitantly. Clint wasn’t sure how Thor would react, but he merely rubbed the place where he’d been elbowed.

                “Does something trouble you? Have I offended?” Thor asked, and his questions seemed genuine. He didn’t reach for Clint, and Clint was grateful.

                “Sorry. I don’t… I don’t like having people behind me.”

                A look of realization came across Thor’s face, and a dawning expression of guilt.

                “My apologies. I know many warriors who are similarly distrustful. I should have asked your preference. Will you allow me to make amends? We can still complete our coupling as intended, I will not step behind you again. You have my word.”

                And the guy sounded so serious and contrite that Clint nodded immediately, let Thor step up and stroke their flagging erections together in his big hands, even allowed him to lean in for a kiss.

When they were both hard again, Thor took him under the knees and lifted him effortlessly, pinning him against the wall next to the hearth. Clint felt the stone scrape against his back and put his arms around Thor’s shoulders, feeling pinned and excited. With his hands against the wall and Clint’s knees draped over his arms, Thor easily spread Clint’s legs and put the omega’s hips at the same height as Thor’s cock. When Thor entered him, Clint felt like his entire body was being pierced with hot pleasure.

Clint moaned, holding tight around Thor’s neck. Clint had been with betas before, but they’d never been so well hung. Clint had never felt anything so large pierce him before, and the lack of knot made it feel even more erotic. The huge prick would split him in two without any effort, then pull back out without any resistance and thrust again. It was a rhythm unlike any Clint had ever felt before, and he found himself matching Thor thrust for thrust.

Thor pounded into him unrestrained, the control of the Aesir gone once he was sheathed in Clint’s body. But Clint made no protest, moaning and throwing back his head. He rocked his hips into Thor’s punishing thrusts and thought he could hear the stonework behind them creak in protest. Through the balcony doors, Clint could see that a storm raged outside, and he didn’t think he imagined that the flashes of lightening were timed perfectly with Thor’s most punishing thrusts.

Clint’s hand found his cock, although he wasn’t sure he’d actually need the extra stimulation, he began stroking it anyway. Thor had his hands full holding Clint’s weight, so Clint didn’t blame him for not offering to help. Clint stroked himself with Thor’s thrusts, his other hand buried in the hair of the alien, fisting his golden locks. When Clint’s hand tightened, Thor groaned in appreciation, hiking Clint’s legs up higher.

“I am close, my friend. I would have you find your pleasure first.”

“Almost there, big guy,” Clint assured, speeding his strokes as the storm outside intensified. “Don’t stop!”

“Nay!” Thor assured, “We shall find bliss together!”

Thor slammed his hips into Clint again and Clint screamed; there was no other way to describe it. He shouted and his body contorted, feeling like he’d been struck by lightning. His legs spasmed and pulled the warrior tighter against him as Thor crushed him against the wall. The lightning flashed outside as they found release, the thunder nearly deafening. Clint shot hot semen all over the warrior, and he could feel Thor’s see spilling hot and wet inside of him. Clint felt like he’d been turned inside out, felt like something had snapped inside of him. His body sang with pleasure, and with the echo of thunder in his ears, Clint blacked out.

 


	19. Chapter 19

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy 4th! Let me know what you think! Thanks!

                When Clint woke, he was back in the guest room, his body sore and achy. He had the feeling that he had been asleep for a long time. He took a moment to take stoke of his surroundings, but it was only when he sat up that he realized what was different.

                The heat was gone. Missing. Over. He had survived, and now there was no nagging sense of urgency to mate, no warm sensations swirling in his belly. His body was sore but sated, and once again completely his own. He thought for a moment that he might cry.

                Instead, he stood purposefully and strolled to the bathroom. The clothes he had stored there were still hidden under the sink. Dirty, tattered, and smelly, but still there. He took a second to listen for Steve and Tony, but the apartment was as silent as when he got up. Either they were gone or, more likely, they were still sleeping off a month of heat sex. Clint put on his dirty, smelly clothes, turned the shower on an icy spray, stepped in, and prayed.

                Because the only thing between him and freedom was the artificial intelligence system that ran the house. An AI that had already told him, by its own admission, that it could read heat signatures. Clint had to hope that all JARVIS’s programs were based on its infared vision. If he could lower his temperature to nearly the same as the room, he could disappear from the AI’s monitors. It was a pretty big hole in Tony’s security, but Clint hoped that Tony’s security protocols were so focused on keeping people out that it wasn’t very good at keeping people in.

                “Sir, might I raise the temperature for you?” the AI’s voice came, as expected. Clint’s heart fluttered, but he kept his voice steady.

                “No, I don’t feel well, and I want a cold shower. I’ll probably be in here a while longer,” he told the machine.

                “Very well, sir,” the voice replied, and Clint thought he might be a little paranoid, but he definitely thought the voice sounded suspicious. Clint waited until his teeth started chattering, then bolted. He hit the stairwell running, got through the door to the stairwell just as the first alarms started to ring, and made it out the window just before it slammed shut and locked behind him. If he hadn’t gotten a good grip on the window ledge, he would have plunged to his death. As it was, he had to test out his acrobatics to get onto the drainpipe and shimmy his way to the ground. By the time his feet hit the pavement and he started down the ally – wet, cold, and weak – he was starting to feel like himself again. He felt unstoppable.

                At the end of the ally, Agent Coulson fell into step beside him. Clint had the urge to run, but there was a gun tucked into Coulson’s waistband and a tazer on his hip, and Clint was pretty winded after his sprint down the side of the building anyway. He let Coulson walk beside him to the end of the ally, where he got a good view of the early morning city just starting to wake up.

                “How did you know I’d bolt?” Clint asked as they paused.

                “You had to try,” Coulson said. “You didn’t volunteer for this. You were captured.”

                “So, what? Now you’re taking me in?”

                “Yes, in a little while. First, I thought we’d get breakfast, talk, and let Iron Man sweat a little. Then I’ll call in to SHIELD and we’ll go from there.”

                “No chance of letting me go, huh?”

                “Nope. I’ll tazer you and watch you drool.”

                “Where’s breakfast?”

                Breakfast, it turned out, was at a small diner just two blocks down the road. It was a little place, a mom-and-pop type that served traditional American food made from scratch, and Clint liked it immediately. Coulson handed him a dufflebag full of clothes for him to change into, and waited in the bathroom while Clint changed in one of the stalls.

                Clint remembered, vaguely, that the agent had hit on him during heat, but he also remembered, in detail, that the agent had refused to have sex with him, even though he’d had every opportunity. Clint didn’t know what that meant, but he at least knew that he could trust the man not to take advantage. That was enough, for the moment. The rest could sort itself out later.

With Clint dry and a good bit warmer, they sat down at a booth while a young beta waiter took their orders.

                “Coffee,” Clint told him, suddenly desperate for the black brew.

                “Plenty of cream and sugar in it,” Coulson added, “and tea with lemon for me.”

                Clint gave Coulson a baleful look when the waiter left, but Coulson was too busy looking at the menu.

                “I take my coffee black,” Clint protested, but Coulson continued looking at the menu.

                “You can have black coffee when you don’t look like you escaped from a refugee camp,” Coulson replied. Clint had to admit that there was some validity to that argument. He was definitely leaner than he’d been before his heat, whittled down to corded muscle and bone by the relentless bouts of sex.

                “So what’s this about, Agent Coulson?” Clint asked, trying the title out on his tongue. The agent smiled and put aside his menu.

                “Call me Phil. You’re not an agent yet. I want to have an informal conversation with you about what SHIELD can offer you.”

                The waiter returned then with Clint’s coffer and Phil’s tea. Clint wondered about the place, wondered if it was some kind of cover for SHIELD operations, because diners didn’t usually put the cream and sugar in your coffee for you. But with the way the beta smiled at Clint as he set the porcelain cup of coffee down, Clint thought that they might just have really good service. Or that Coulson might be a regular.

                “I’ll have a vegetarian omlette,” Phil told the waiter. “And he’ll have a cinnamon roll, eggs, toast, bacon, sausage and hash browns. How do you like your eggs?”

                “Over easy,” Clint said as they both handed their menus to the waiter. When the beta was gone, Clint said, “You know, I’ll never be able to eat all that.”

                Coulson shrugged.

                “So pitch it. Don’t worry, it’s going on Stark’s tab.”

                “I’m not even all the hungry.”

                “Oh, you will be,” Phil replied, and there was a smile on his face that spoke of experience. “Try your coffee.”

                Clint frowned and took a sip, bracing for the too sweet taste, but was surprised to find that he liked it.

                “Most omegas have a sweet tooth immediately after heat,” Phil told him, sipping at his own tea. “It’s a side effect of all the calories you lose during heat.”

                “Yeah? And that’s, what? Some kind of SHIELD data or something?”

                “No,” Phil replied, smiling and amused. “That’s not from SHIELD. That’s… personal experience. Tony and Steve aren’t the only alphas to bring an omega through a rough heat. A good alpha, one with experience, knows that what comes after the heat breaks is just as important as during the heat. Food is important to build your strength back up, along with a few days of rest. It’s important to have someone check in on you, make sure you’re doing alright, and give you social interaction. It’s easy for an omega to get sick and depressed if they aren’t cared for correctly after a heat.”

                “I feel fine,” Clint protested. His cinnamon roll arrived then, nearly as big as the plate it was served on and covered in warm, sticky icing. Clint nibbled at it, then found himself inhaling it. Suddenly he was ravenous.

                “You’re less than eight hours out of heat, and you’ve already panicked and bolted from your alphas. I think that says a lot, don’t you?”

                Clint had to admit that it probably did, but he didn’t want to express that out loud. So he shoveled the rest of the cinnamon roll in his mouth and asked, “So what do you propose?”

                “You already know what we want. Come work for SHIELD. Give us what information you can, knowing that we’ll protect you from any retaliation. We’ll train you, house you, pay you a fair wage and offer health benefits. It’s a good job, and we’d be able to expunge all prior felonies from your record.”

                “What happens if I refuse?”

                “You go to jail. There’s nothing I can do about that. Not with the things you’ve done, the amount of data SHIELD has on you. But I hope you won’t choose that option. I doubt you’ll sit in prison very long, between your own skills and Black Widow’s dedication to you. However, once you’re out, you’ll be a target for a lot of groups that won’t give you an option. They’ll find your weakness, or Natasha’s, and exploit it until you cave. It will be just like before.”

                Clint contemplated this, sipping at his coffee and enjoying the sweet, rich flavor. Phil put him at ease, and he felt like the other man was being honest with him, but he couldn’t help feeling that it should have all been harder, that redemption should come with a higher price. Finally, he settled on saying, “I’m an omega, you’re never going to put me in the field. With heats, I’d be a liability.”

                Phil gave him an appraising look.

                “How much do you actually know about heats? Normal ones, without suppressants?”

                “Just what I learned over the last month.”

                “That was nowhere near a normal heat. That was a catastrophic reaction to suppressants and inducers interacting at the same time. That was… If a normal heat is a raindrop, that was the ocean.”

                “Yeah, but omegas go through heat,” Clint argued. He wasn’t naïve about heat, even if he was technically inexperienced. “I’ve seen it. I’ve seen what can happen if bad guys get their hands on an omega in heat. You can’t have a heat in the field.”

                “SHIELD doesn’t condone the use of suppressants because of the traumatic impact they have on an omega’s biology. But we have lots of omega agents, and it would be dangerous to have them go into heat in the field. We use something called normalizers. They allow an omega to work with their normal biology and choose when their heat happens, down to the week. It happens about once a year, and the omega simply takes two weeks of paid vacation and put a couple days on either end of the heat for safety’s sake. It’s actually a lot more convenient than rut, when we have to let most of the alphas off at the same time.”

                “What’s rut?”

                “It’s when alphas get horny and aggressive, and it’s not particularly safe to keep them all together. It usually happens in the spring. We like to call it spring break instead of rut week.”

                “I just thought alphas were always assholes. I never saw much of a difference.”

                “I doubt there’s been much of a difference, in your experience. It’s not a problem in most places, but because of the high percentage of alphas employed by SHIELD, we like to be careful. Regardless, on normalizers, you’ll go into heat once a year, and you’ll be able to control when it happens and who you spend it with.”

                “And the rest of the time?”

                “The rest of the time, we’d like you to be an agent. Do what you’ve always done, only for our cause, and with a lot less casualties. I’d like you to join the Avengers Initiative and work as an independent agent. We hand you a file, you say yes or no to the mission. If you say no, we hand you another one. If you say yes, we outfit you as an agent and send you into combat. It’s all voluntary, but contingent upon you staying under SHIELD supervision while not on a mission. Until we can trust you, then we can renegotiate your supervision. How does that sound to you?”

                It sounded very nice. Better, certainly, than he’d hoped. Of course, Clint had expected to rot in a cell, so any offer was better than that. But Clint couldn’t sound too eager.

                “How do I know you’ll do what you say?”

                “There’s no assurances I can give you that will appease you,” Phil admitted, which made Clint feel a little better. At least the agent wasn’t going to try to mislead him. “Steve will give SHIELD a recommendation, as will Tony, in his fashion. They are both independent agents of SHIELD. I am the personal handler of the Avengers team, so you will never be asked to do more than you’re capable of, never to do more than you’re comfortable with. And Natasha has agreed to join you, so you’ll have her by your side if you get nervous.”

                “Natasha’s coming?” Clint asked, and at that he couldn’t keep the excitement out of his voice. Phil nodded patiently.

                “She has agreed to meet us tonight and talk to you. She’s assured us that as long as you’re well, she’d be willing to hear our terms.”

                Clint thought this over, but couldn’t bring himself to make a decision without Natasha looking it over for him. Instead, he said, “If Natasha joins, I’ll join too.”

                “I had hoped that would be your answer.”

                The food arrived then, and Clint dug in with gusto. He didn’t want to admit that there was a good chance he’d finish all the food in front of him, but he also wasn’t going to leave hungry just to prove a point. Phil just smiled and kept his mouth shut while Clint shoveled food into his mouth, picking at his own omlette as Clint ate. When Clint had polished off the majority of his food and started nibbling at the bacon, conversation resumed.

                “So, what happens now?” Clint asked, moving on to the sausage links.

                “That depends a lot on you and Natasha. You’ll need a couple weeks to recover, and Natasha will need a while to adjust. We’d like to put you through standard training for SHIELD agents, which includes a six-month training program. We’d like to move you and Natasha into the training facility early and give you about a month to adjust before the other recruits show up and training begins. Of course, we’ll give you and Natasha separate quarters from the rest of the recruits.”

                “Because we’re omegas?”

                “Because you’re assassins. For your own safety and the safety of the other recruits, alpha and omega alike, we’ll keep you separate until we know you can control yourselves. We want to make sure we have any aggression, panic attacks, or flashbacks under control before you can interact with the recruits and trainers. Speaking of which, you’ll both be signed up with psych and attend counseling sessions three times a week until you’re cleared for training.”

                “A shrink?” Clint asked distastefully. “I don’t know if Natasha will go for that.”

                “We don’t specify what she has to talk to the councilors about, but you will both be required to attend sessions. There’s nothing I can do about that, it’s a strict SHIELD policy that a psychiatrist must clear all agents as sane for active duty. You might be surprised, though. Sometimes they help. And if Natasha has any reservations, I can see if the two of you can attend sessions together.”

                “What about… her other problem?” Clint wondered.

                “The suppressants?” Phil asked, and Clint nodded. “I doubt SHIELD will want her to stay on suppressants, with as many dangerous side effects as they have. I’ve already consulted with Dr. Banner, and he’s agreed to assemble a team of specialists to monitor Natasha. From what he told me, they will most likely use the time while you’re training to wean her off the suppressants, slowly decreasing her dependency over the six month period. At the end of the training, they’ll give her a month for heat leave, and she’ll need either Steve or Thor to help her through. Both alphas have already agreed to assist in any way they can, and Dr. Banner seems to think that she’ll probably get through her heat with them in about a week.”

                “Damn. Lucky girl.”

                “Like I said,” Phil assured, “Your heat was a catastrophic mix of suppressants, inducers, and stress, all rolled into one nightmarish heat. Your next heat won’t be nearly as intense, and Natasha’s shouldn’t be as debilitating either. We’d like to keep you nearby while Natasha goes through heat, in case she needs moral support.”

                “Obviously,” Clint replied, because they wouldn’t be able to keep him away. She’d been there for him during his heat, in her own way. He wouldn’t abandon her when she needed him most. If she needed him. There was a good chance she wouldn’t allow him anywhere near her while she worked over her chosen alpha. That was just how Natasha was.

                “Once Natasha recovers from heat, I have a few special missions I’d like you to accompany me on so that I can get a feel for how you work in the field. I can’t tell you much, but it will probably be a heavy infiltration mission in Budapest. We haven’t had anyone capable of taking the mission on, and I’d like to see how the two of you handle it.”

                “You’ll go with us?” Clint questioned. When he had a mission for the terrorist cell, they just gave him directions and a credit card.

                “On this one,” Phil clarified. “I won’t be able to go with you on many missions, but I’d like to directly supervise your first few missions, in case something goes disastrously wrong. Once I have a feel for your mission style, we’ll graduate you to partnered missions, then individual missions. Eventually, I’d like you to start taking missions with Tony and Steve. You and Natasha are probably our only recruits that have any chance of keeping up with them.”

                “And outside of missions? Are we prisoners? Agents? Assassins? Liabilities?”

                “You are independent agents contracted by SHIELD, just like Steve and Tony. It’s a bit of a gray area. You won’t be standard SHIELD agents, but you will be under SHIELD authority. It will give you more freedom as to which missions you attempt or reject, but you won’t have as much freedom inside the agency as other agents. You also won’t have any kind of ranking or seniority in SHIELD, but I didn’t think you or Natasha would be interested in starting at the bottom with the other grunts.”

                “That’s fine,” Clint said dismissively. He was used to being outside of the normal chain of command. With his previous organization, he had basically been a tool instead of a person. Plus, if the new recruits were anything like the boys he’d met when he’d been picked up, Natasha would take them apart, and Clint would probably get himself killed trying to save them. “What about outside of missions? Are we confined to the SHIELD facility?”

                “During the six months of training, you and the other recruits will stay on base unless released for leave. You and Natasha will be supervised any time you leave the base by a SHIELD agent.”

                That sounded a bit restrictive, and Clint gave Phil a dour look, but the agent smiled.

                “You have to remember,” Phil continued, “there’s a long list of SHIELD agents that like you. Steve and Tony are both agents, and technically so is Thor. If you need to go somewhere off-base, any of them could accompany you to ensure that you return.” Clint wasn’t sure how he felt about seeing Steve and Tony again. Wasn’t sure how he’d react, or how they would. Phil must have noticed, because he said, “If you don’t feel comfortable asking any of them to accompany you, I would also be able to go with you, as long as you give me enough notice to clear my schedule. The same goes for Natasha, if she needs to get away. But I warn you, SHIELD training is intense, and there are very few breaks. I don’t want you to think that it’s some kind of a frat house.”

                “What about after the training? Do we have to live at the SHIELD camp and walk around with guards for the rest of our lives?”

                “That’s up for renegotiation and like everything else, it depends on how much SHIELD feels that they can trust you, and how loyal you prove yourself. Safe to say, it will probably be several years before you’ll be released to unsupervised civilian life between missions.”

                “And all that time, I’ll need to live on the SHIELD base?” It wasn’t the worst thing that Clint had heard, but it was depressing. It sounded like being caged for the rest of his life, only released to hunt down some enemy. He would agree to it, but he wasn’t sure that he could live like that forever. He knew Natasha couldn’t.

                “Not necessarily. You’ll need SHIELD approved, supervised housing. SHIELD training camp qualifies, as does the helicarrier if you should decide to take up residence there. Your other option, should you agree to join the Avenger’s team, is to take up residence in the Avenger’s Tower, which Mr. Stark has offered for the residence of all members of the team.” Phil paused, like he was hoping Clint would offer an opinion on that, but Clint wasn’t sure how he felt. A lot of things were coming at him at once, and then one he felt least ready to deal with was his relationship with Steve and Tony. Or lack thereof. Or whatever they were considered. Clint wasn’t sure if Tony had offered SHIELD a room specifically for him, but he had a feeling it was a standard offer that Phil was using for his new agent. In which case, he wasn’t sure he’d be welcome in the Tower after how he’d taken off. Nor was he sure how he’d feel about living with them. He wasn’t sure how he felt about them at all, really. It was all mixed up in his head.

“Of course,” Phil continued, “very few people can stand to live with Tony Stark. I wouldn’t blame you if you passed on that offer. Also, there will have to be upgrades to the security of the building, with the way you and Natasha have been waltzing in and out. It could take a few months to have it upgraded. And that’s only provided that SHIELD feels that you’re ready for that kind of freedom, after your training and first few missions. Until then, we’ll probably want to keep you in the training facility or on the Helicarrier. Even after, it’s likely you’ll need to check in with the agency on a daily or weekly basis until you retire as an asset.”

                “Meaning until I die?”

                “Or are incapacitated in some way. I won’t lie to you about the risks. There’s a very good chance you will die, or be maimed to the point that you can’t function. The men that you’ll be facing will be ruthless and vicious.”

                “I should know, I used to be one of them.”

                “Not any longer, though,” and there was a finality to those words that Clint found appealing. There was only one question that he could think to ask.

                “So… when do we meet Natasha?”

                “I’ll take that to mean you’re agreeing,” Phil responded, then took a sip of his tea. “I want to… address what happened during your heat.”

                “With you?”

                “Yes. And with Steve and Tony. I want to make sure,” and here Phil met his gaze with a very intense look, “that you understand that no one will take advantage of you. Not me. Not Steve. And not Tony. No one will pressure you into a relationship. Your employment with SHIELD is not conditional upon the affections of any alpha. And should you decide to begin a relationship with an alpha, it is your choice and can be ended at any point that you wish. Do you understand?”

                “I do,” Clint replied, and was surprised to find that he really believed that.

                “Welcome to SHIELD, Agent Barton.”


	20. Chapter 20

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys! So, I'm still working on the Phil/Clint ending, but this Steve/Tony/Clint ending took longer than I'd imagined and I didn't want to string everyone along without updates. I was hoping to post both endings at the same time, but this one turned out to be a lot longer than I'd anticipated. I hope it's okay for everybody. Thanks! Let me know what you think!

                Clint missed them. Not literally, he never missed. But he missed the way Tony snarked and the way Steve teased, and he missed watching them bicker and just being in the middle of it.

                Apparently, it wasn’t subtle. Natasha noticed, and surprisingly so did Coulson.

                “You should talk to them,” was the near stereo advice he got from the two, only hours apart.

                “Just talk, see how things stand,” came the advice from Coulson. “You might be surprised.”

                “Don’t be such a pussy,” Natasha told him.

                Clint didn’t like to think that he was a coward.

                But he also didn’t contact Steve or Tony.

                For the first six months of training, he had no contact with the outside world, so it wasn’t really like he was avoiding them, it was just that the opportunity never arose. He told himself that, anyway. But he also never asked Phil if he could contact them.

                After six months, Clint and Natasha graduated SHIELD’s academy at the top of their class. Phil gave them each a plaque congratulating them on having zero casualties. Natasha almost didn’t get hers, but the alpha who made a pass at her pulled out of intensive care just in time. Clint was proud for multiple reasons.

                As Phil promised, Natasha’s heat was carefully monitored and supervised. At the end of their training, she disappeared into Stark Tower with Thor, and Clint promised not to bother her as long as she called him every night. She called, like clockwork, and Clint tried not to be jealous at how happy she looked. It only took nine days, and Natasha was back by his side with a slight limp and a pleased smile.

                They moved to the SHIELD helicarrier after that for more training, but also because Clint wasn’t ready to live in the Stark Tower, and Natasha wanted some time to get used to the idea of living there. She had enjoyed her time there – more than enjoyed it, by the way she smiled – but she wasn’t ready to commit to being part of a team. For all of her life, it had just been her, with a short period where it was her and Clint. She needed to adjust to more.

                But still, Clint missed them. Hearing Tony on the comms or seeing Steve on the television always made his heart beat faster. It seemed like they were everywhere, or maybe it was just because he was perched so high and saw so much. And his eyes always strayed to them.

                He did a poorer job of hiding it this time around. Coulson advised, “You need to talk to them. Get closure, if nothing else.” And Natasha said, “Stop being such a pussy or I’ll hurt you.” Tony and Steve’s contact information mysteriously appeared in Clint’s phone, although he never did find out while one put it there.

But neither of them could sway him. So they went to their first real mission, in Budapest, with his heart still missing the two alphas. Clint had worried that it would be a distraction, but if anything it made him more determined to succeed, to prove himself.

                The mission was a stunning success, completed nearly a week early and with half the expected casualties. Clint and Natasha were flawless and deadly, with Coulson’s commands being accurate, intelligent, and lethal. Clint couldn’t have asked for a better handler, one that could work better to his and Natasha’s skills. There was no posturing with him, no need to bend them to his will. He saw them as skilled weapons, but also respected that they were human enough to make their own calls and judgments. He gave them orders and expected them to carry them out to the best of their abilities, but he didn’t micromanage or second guess them. For the first time, Clint felt at ease in the chain of command.

                Clint and Phil fell into an easy companionship that never became anything more. Despite Phil’s original overtures, he never made another move on Clint once he became Clint’s superior officer, and Clint never offered anything more than a professional and friendly relationship. It wasn’t that he couldn’t see himself with someone like Phil- despite being Clint’s senior by nearly ten years, Phil’s experience and unflappable disposition made him just as attractive as men half his age. It was more that Clint felt that he would never stop comparing Phil to his first two alphas, and there was no way the agent could compete with the two of them. They had pierced Clint’s heart, and he wasn’t sure he could ever recover.

                One night, just after their first real success, drunk on adrenaline and stolen vodka, Clint finally got up the guts to ask him about it. Or, more accurately, managed to get drunk enough to ask.

                “This liquor!” Natasha crowed, “It’s almost as good as sex!” She’d killed a whole bunch of asshole alphas earlier that day. It always made her giddy. Plus, she trusted Phil, despite the amount of shit she gave him about being an alpha. He’d earned their trust over the past months, and Clint and Natasha he been defenseless in front of Phil more times than they could count since then. And he’d never once taken advantage. It let even Natasha feel like she could drop her guard around him and relax.

                “Don’t you think that’s a bit of an exaggeration?” Clint asked, and then took another drink, because if he could still pronounce exaggeration then he probably wasn’t drunk enough.

                “I suppose it depends on whom the sex is with,” she replied, and that smug, satisfied look came back to her face. Clint rolled his eyes.

                “You’re both doing very well, and you’ve got a lot to celebrate,” Phil told them, and poured himself a shot of vodka. Clint knew that Phil wouldn’t let himself get drunk, but he didn’t mind his agents letting loose, and it was three more days until their second target would move into range. Until then, it was all just sitting on their hands.

                “Speaking of sex,” Clint said, “you never said anything after my heat was over. Did you really find me attractive?”

                Natasha laughed out loud. She was having a glorious time, and fairly close to shitfaced.

                “You and your looks! I swear, I’m going to start calling you Pretty Eyes instead of Hawkeye.”

                “Nat… that doesn’t even make sense.”

                Coulson shifted the bottle away from Natasha, but his attention was still on Clint. Clint was relieved that Phil didn’t look annoyed or embarrassed.

“I told you what you needed to hear. You needed to know you had options, that you weren’t trapped there.”

“What would you have done if I took you up on it?”

“Given you paperwork until you changed your mind.”

“Yeah?” Clint laughed.

“Yeah,” Coulson replied, and suddenly Clint thought it probably wasn’t a joke. That made him giggle harder.

“Oh, man, that’s just like you,” he snickered, then sobered. “I don’t suppose it matters now. I pretty well screwed that shit up.”

“You’re ridiculous, pitchka,” Natasha said, and she must have been really drunk, because she trilled her Rs in a very Russian way. “Call them. How can you know you’ve screwed it up if you never ask? There’s a Russian proverb… with a bird… and a turtle,” and Phil caught the shot glass as it fell from her lax fingers. He smiled fondly, draped an afghan over her shoulders, and put her shotglass on the table.

“She’s right. Not about the proverb thing, I’m pretty sure she just made that up. But about calling Tony and Steve. You’ll never know unless you try.”

And then Coulson disappeared into the bedroom, and Clint was left with the bottle and a drunken passed-out assassin and his thoughts.

When Clint finally found the guts to contact Steve and Tony, it was Tony he sent a message to. He wanted them both, but he thought that Tony was a bit of a traditional alpha, and Clint felt like he had a better chance convincing Tony to hear him out. Maybe Tony could talk Steve around if they weren’t both onboard. If nothing else, he’d have a second chance with Steve if Tony refused him outright. Not that he wanted them separate, but he was used to working the angles, and having two angles to come at was better than having them both reject him at once.

The message he sent said, “Hey, wanna meet up?” He typed it twelve times in different words before finally getting frustrated and hitting the send button harder than particularly necessary. He panicked a moment later, realizing that what he’d actually scent, while sounding neither needy nor desperate, came across pretty careless. He immediately sent a following message that just said, “I miss you both.” Then he wondered about the rationality of sending the message just to Tony, but he couldn’t make himself do anything else. Not until he knew what Tony’s reply would be.

He shouldn’t have worried about their unity, though. It was Steve that responded, so obviously Tony either shared or tattled. Even though Steve suggested that they meet at a nice, public diner, Clint still felt like he should probably bring a weapon. Or backup. Or both.

“Steve qualifies as SHIELD supervision, so you can go alone. I’ll drop you off,” Phil told him.

“Thanks,” he said to the agent. And, “Damn,” as soon as Phil got out of earshot.

“You’re still being a pussy,” Natasha commented, coming up behind him, quiet as a cat. “Captain America isn’t going to kill you. Besides, if a man in that much spandex beats you up, I would lose all respect for you.”

“You know, I wasn’t actually worried about physical violence until you said something. Thanks,” Clint said to her passing figure, and it was riddled with sarcasm.

But she was right, and it was time to stop being a coward. A week later, Phil dropped him off at the diner, and Clint walked in to his fate with Steve and Tony.

Only, it didn’t seem as dramatic as all that. There Steve was, sitting at a table, perusing a menu. He was dressed in blue jeans and a button down shirt, complete with a baseball cap that he politely set on the bench beside him. He looked up when Clint approached, and his smile was easy and sincere. It made Clint’s chest relax.

“Clint, you look good! SHIELD life must really agree with you.”

“Yeah,” Clint replied hesitantly, but Steve’s smile was enough to convince the omega to sit down. “I feel a lot better. And Phil says I’ve been doing really well. As an agent.”

And that was pretty much as far as Clint had managed to think through the conversation. Assert that he had fully recovered, and that he was a valuable asset to SHIELD. He wasn’t sure what he wanted to happen after that. Was it too much to ask for Steve to jump him? It would certainly make things easier.

They lapsed into silence, with Steve sipping at an ice water and Clint fidgeting with his hands in his lap. Finally, Steve asked, “So, why am I here?”

Clint wasn’t sure how to reply. He suddenly felt foolish, and he cursed Phil and Natasha. What did he have to offer men like Steve and Tony? Two beautiful, rich, superhero alphas? With one short, bulky, scarred-up assassin? It was absurd.

“Clint?” Steve called again, his voice soft but insistent.

“I’m sorry,” Clint whispered hurriedly, “This was a bad idea. I’m sorry I wasted your time.”

Clint rose, because the one thing he was good at was running for it, but Steve grabbed his wrist and quietly told him to sit down.

“I said I was sorry,” Clint groused, but took his seat again anyway.

“I don’t want you to be sorry,” Steve replied, and his face was relaxed but nearly unreadable. “I want you to tell me why you brought me here. It’s not a trick.”

“It’s always a trick,” Clint responded, and that at least made Steve frown.

“Not with us,” Steve assured, and it was true that they had never been false with him. Still, Clint hesitated. Steve must have sensed that Clint wouldn’t continue, because he sighed and went on. “You know you aren’t the first omega we’ve had together, right? Men and Tony?”

“I know,” Clint said softly. He didn’t need a reminder that he was a repeat.

“It wasn’t like this, the other time. With Loki, it was… intense, but it wasn’t nearly as personal. I don’t think either Tony or I expected to feel so strongly about you, especially not after the heat was over. We expected it all to fade once the heat had passed, but it didn’t.”

Clint knew what they were talking about. He had thought (and hoped, at times) that the things he’d felt and done during his heat would be like a fleeting dream. He’d hoped a little time and some distance would convince him that it wasn’t real. Instead, it had become crisp and sharp, and stabbed him right in the heart.

“When you disappeared,” Steve said softly, “we were frantic. I don’t know what you were actually thinking when you left, but the immediate assumption was that you would return to your previous handlers. Tony was hysterical, in his own way. I’ll assume SHIELD didn’t show you the news footage, but in the three hours before Agent Coulson called us, Tony did several thousand dollars’ worth of damage the surrounding neighborhood while trying to find you.”

“I didn’t… think you guys would be that worried,” Clint admitted.

“I know,” Steve soothed, “and I know Tony’s always been a bit of a loose cannon. It just really broke Tony up when you left. He isn’t much of a traditional alpha, but the one thing he prides himself on is taking care of the people he loves. When one of them runs, he takes it to heart.”

“He wasn’t supposed to try to find me. I didn’t ask him for that,” Clint defended. “And I think I can take care of myself by this point.”

“I don’t doubt your skills,” Steve assured, “but you were just coming out of heat. You were weak and alone, and the last time either of us had seen you, you could barely walk. It was impressive enough that you managed to figure out a way around JARVIS and get out of the building, but then you disappeared without a trace. You have to understand what that looked like to us.”

Clint nodded and looked miserable. The last thing he’d wanted was to cause more trouble for the two men who’d saved his life.

Seeing that Clint would make no reply, Steve continued. “It’s not just that, though. Tony told me you promised him that you wouldn’t disappear, that you’d ask for help if you needed it. He took you running as a sign that you didn’t trust us. He started drinking again, do you know that? It was rough, for a while. It took me a long time to snap him out of that. What makes you think I’d let you put him in that position again?”

“I wouldn’t do anything to hurt Tony!”

“You did hurt Tony,” Steve corrected, then paused and said, “You hurt me, too, Clint. Honestly, what the hell? What were you thinking?”

“Wasn’t thinking. Just… Just needed to know that I could get away, that I wasn’t trapped. I wasn’t going back to the assassins, I promise. I just couldn’t…” Clint wasn’t sure how to explain to Steve how desperately, achingly he wanted to stay with Steve and Tony, and how much that scared him. Finally, he said, “I’m not asking you two to forget what I did. I know I fucked up.”

“What are you asking for?” Steve asked, and his voice was calm and exasperated at the same time, like he was trying to be patient but failing.

“I just… I missed you guys. I just… I wanted… to see you both again.”

“Is that it?” Steve asked quietly.

“Do I have to say it?” Clint asked, and even to himself it sounded pathetic, so he followed with, “If you’re going to reject me, just do it already.”

“No one’s rejecting you,” Steve assured. It gave Clint a glimmer of hope.

“I want to come back. I miss you guys. I don’t know if… you know… if you guys are just looking for something on the side…”

“We don’t do that,” Steve said, his face going stern. Clint gulped, wondering if he’d screwed up his chances. “If you want to be a part of this, it’s serious. I don’t know if you’re ready for that.”

“I want to be,” Clint offered uncertainly. It wasn’t that he didn’t want to be serious with Steve and Tony. It was just that he literally had no practice with these types of things. He felt like he was bound to mess it up somehow.

“I…” Steve hesitated. “We want you to be ready as well. That’s why I’m here, and why Tony isn’t. Because Tony wanted to fly into SHIELD and kidnap you as soon as he got your message. And he was pissed that I made him stay home.”

Clint was stunned, and could only say, “Does that mean you don’t want me?”

“No, that’s not what it means. I want you too. I think you could be good for Tony and good for me. But Tony wants to rush things, and I want to make sure you’re ready.”

The waiter came then and Clint ordered a hamburger without paying much attention. His mind was going a mile a minute, and even after the waiter left, Clint couldn’t think of what to say next. Finally, Steve asked quietly, “Why did you contact Tony and not me?”

“I...” Clint hesitated, unsure of how much to admit. Then he mentally shrugged, because he couldn’t ask them to be in a relationship with him and still not trust them. “I didn’t want you present a united front in rejecting me. I wanted a second chance if I messed things up with Tony.”

“And I suppose Tony being a bit of a playboy didn’t hurt.”

Clint stared at his fingers and felt his face heat. It hadn’t been a conscious thought, but that had probably been a big part of it.

“Relationships with three people are pretty rare, even now,” he said, and knew he was blushing. “It’s not weird to have an extra person during heat, but…”

“…But that’s not what you want,” Steve finished, and Clint dared a look up to see that the alpha was smiling.

“No, it’s… I don’t want this to be a heat thing or a side thing,” Clint said, and kept the “but I’ll take what I can get” in his head.

“Good, because we don’t want that either,” Steve replied. Clint couldn’t help but feel a little doubtful.

“Really? You don’t think Tony’s reputation is going to take another dive when the press finds out that he’s in an obvious threesome? And your 1940’s sentiments don’t have any problems with this?” It was surprisingly easy for him to voice these concerns, as they’d been rolling around in his head since he first sent the message. Steve laughed in response.

“I’m not sure you’re aware of this,” Steve replied, still grinning, “but a threesome with an omega is still considered more socially acceptable than an alpha-alpha relationship. If I were to care half a cent about what people thought of us, I’d say adding you would be an improvement. Obviously, I don’t care,” he said, then sobered a bit. “It’s nobody’s business who you love. Your culture today, as advanced as it is, thinks it can stick its nose in everybody’s personal lives. You know, there were threesomes around, even in the 40’s. Usually an alpha and two omegas or an alpha-beta-omega group. Everybody knew, but nobody ever said anything about it. We had a couple families in my neighborhood with an extra aunt or uncle in the household. You couldn’t broadcast it, but people mostly turned a blind eye. I’m not saying it was right, that those people were legally discriminated against. But now a days it seems like it’s legal, but everybody wants you to put on a show.” Steve sighed and looked a little weary. “It was the same way when Tony and I got together.”

Clint didn’t really know what to say to that. The idea of being gawked at by strangers or having people poke around in his personal life terrified him. But so did the thought of spending the rest of his life without Steve and Tony by his side.

“If you want this,” Steve continued after a moment of silence, “I want you to walk into it with your eyes open. Tony and I aren’t perfect. I have my missions and Tony has his work. Tony can be… insensitive, and he tries to make up for it with big, sweeping gestures. He tends to confuse love and money sometimes,” Steve said, then got this annoyed look on his face. “A lot of times, actually. Earlier today, actually. But, anyway, we’ve all got issues, you know?”

“And you?” Clint asked. “If we’re naming our faults, what are Captain America’s shortcomings?”

Steve snorted at the title. “I think just being Captain America is a fault. Everybody wants me to be some perfect, flawless alpha, not knowing that I’m not even a real alpha at all. I have the same problems all soldiers do, being overprotective, having flashbacks, having nightmares. On top of that, I can’t connect to a lot of the culture today, and I get frustrated when I’m always playing catch-up. It’s difficult, being both the perfect hero and the broken soldier at the same time. Tony’s the only one I can drop my shield around and be myself. Tony, and now you.”

Clint digested that for a moment. It felt good to hear that his alphas weren’t as perfect as they seemed, that they might have a place for a broken omega like him. On the other hand, he had next to no chance of fixing them. Someone as twisted and warped as he was could only hope not to make things worse.

“We don’t need to be fixed,” Steve said as though he could read Clint’s mind, or maybe Clint had said that part out loud. “It’s not about fixing something that’s broken, it’s about fitting the pieces together until they make a whole. What about you? What are your broken pieces?”

“There’s too many to count,” Clint groused, because if Steve and Tony had flaws, then Clint had been shattered. “All the normal soldier stuff, I guess. Like you said, nightmares, flashbacks, hypersensitivity.” His therapist had said as much, with a lot more words. “Plus, I’ve never really had a permanent place to stay, so there’s that. And then all my problems with trust and alphas and… sex,” Clint was staring at his hands, listening to his own words. “Actually, you guys would probably be smarter to tell me to go screw myself.”

“We want you, problems and all,” Steve assured, and reached across the table to put his hand on Clint’s. It was a small gesture, but the contact sent sparks through Clint. The last time he’d been touched like that had been during his heat. And before that, never.

“Alright, that’s enough serious talk. I don’t want to give you indigestion for lunch,” Steve told him with a smile. “Let’s talk about SHIELD. I heard you and Natasha did great on your first mission. How was it?”

They finished their lunch with small-talk. They laughed and joked, talked more about Clint’s time with SHIELD and the possibility of him and Natasha joining the Avengers. Clint had a good time, even though it seemed like something was missing, with it just being him and Steve. Before they left, Steve made him promise to call them later in the week. He wanted to take things slow and set up some dates with him and Tony. Clint… wasn’t sure he could take things slow.

They parted amicably, but Clint’s mind was in such turmoil that he wasn’t even thinking that Steve was technically his chaperone, and he probably should have called Phil before they parted.

A block away from the restaurant, some asshole wolf whistled at him. Clint flicked the guy off and kept walking. When the car pulled up beside him, he rolled his eyes and prepared to get really pissy with some oversized jock asshole. Instead, he met Tony’s ginning eyes and stepped around the car to get in the passenger seat. On the way, he noticed that it was a cherry red Porsche in a model that he didn’t even recognize. It smelled like money.

“Listen, don’t let Steve scare you off.”

“Okay,” Clint replied, because what the hell else could he say to that?

“I mean, I know we both have some issues – well, not really Steve, you know – but there are benefits to make up for our crazy shit. Hell, just the housing alone! And this car.”

“What about the car?” Clint asked, and Tony gave him a puzzled look.

“It’s your car. Didn’t Steve tell you?”

“Tell me what?”

“That I bought you a car.”

“You…” Well that explained some things. “Seriously? You don’t need to buy me a car.”

Tony scoffed. “I can’t have my omega riding around in those shitty SHIELD hummers.”

“You…” It was really tempting to just take the car and say thank you. He’d never had an alpha buy him anything this nice. Hell, he’d never had an alpha buy him something that didn’t require he kill with it. But Steve’s words about long-term came back to him, and he didn’t want to set up their relationship to be based on Tony buying him nice things. “How about you keep the car, but you drive me around in it for a while before you drop me off at SHIELD?”

“Yeah?” Tony asked, then shrugged. “I can do that.”

They rode around for nearly hour, listening to music some, making fun of each other’s taste, talking about cars and life and Steve. It was shorter than his time at the diner with Steve, but Clint felt just as good about it. When Tony finally dropped him off at the SHIELD building, he made Clint promise that he would not take things slow, that he would be moved in to the Avengers tower by the end of the week. Clint just smiled and waved goodbye.

Clint spent the rest of the afternoon with Natasha. She made fun of his glowing face even as she wiped the floor with it. His concentration was fried, even Clint could tell that, but he had all this nervous energy to work out of his system. When Natasha got bored with kicking his ass, he moved on to the SHIELD gym, hoping to exhaust himself. Toward the end of the evening, just before Clint was ready to call it a night, Phil stopped in. He tossed Clint a towel and settled on the bench beside him.

“How did it go?” Phil asked as Clint wiped his face. Clint hesitated as he put the towel aside.

“You asking as my handler or my friend?” he questioned, because he was pretty sure Phil could work in both capacities. Phil gave him a gentle smile.

“I’m asking as your friend, but I can advise you as both. Sound fair?”

“I… I dunno, Phil,” Clint complained, and brought his knees up onto the bench. “Steve and Tony are great, you know that. But they want so much out of me, and… I just don’t want to screw this up,” he admitted.

“I take it Steve and Tony were receptive to your advances then?”

“Yeah. Hell, Tony tried to buy me a car,” Clint admitted, and Phil rolled his eyes. “They want me to be a full-time partner, I guess, but I don’t know.”

“Are they moving too fast?” Phil questioned, and it made Clint laugh.

“No. Hell no, Steve’s all about moving slow, dating and whatever. It’s just...” Clint hesitated and struggled to find the words.

“That’s not how we do things,” came Natasha’s quiet voice. She had been on the other side of the room, stretching on the mats, and Clint had all but forgotten she was there, as she’d obviously intended. When his attention turned to her, she climbed to her feet and sauntered over. “You and I don’t work like that, we don’t plan for long-term because we’ve never lived like that. We find something we want, and we reach for it with both hands,” she said gently, coming to sit beside him. “Maybe it’s not the best way to do things, but it’s all we know. They can’t ask you to slow down and overthink things without ensuring that you’ll mess it up.”

“Are you saying he should move into the Avengers Tower tonight?” Phil asked, his voice revealing shock and disbelief.

“It was going to happen sooner or later anyway, wasn’t it? I mean, we both know that you recruited us for the Avenger’s team, and all the Avengers live in Stark’s tower anyway. Hell, he’d have his own floor. It’s not like he’d be living in a bedroom with them.”

Considering some of the tiny spaces the two of them had lived in before, having an entire floor that was his alone seemed ridiculously lavish, and put to shame his fears of being cramped with the two alphas. Still, he couldn’t help but worry what it would be like if their relationship failed. He wasn’t sure if he’d be able to keep living there, even if he did have his own floor.

“What if I can’t live there?” he questioned aloud.

“Then you move,” Natasha replied simply.

“SHIELD keeps housing for agents,” Phil added. “If we couldn’t move you to the Tower, it was always the backup plan to keep you there.”

“And you, Nat?” Clint asked, suddenly needing to know where she would be during all this, feeling desperately paranoid that she might disappear somewhere.

“I think I could survive having a whole suite to myself, even if I have to put up with three alphas, an oddball beta, and you,” she said, and she tried to make it sound like an insult but he knew she was teasing. Clint had almost forgotten that Bruce and Thor also had rooms in the Tower. It helped a little to remember that it wouldn’t just be him and his alphas all alone there.

“So what do you want to do?” Phil asked, his voice open and free of judgment.

“I… think Natasha’s right. I want to go to them. Tonight. Is that possible?”

“I don’t see why not,” Phil replied. “I can drop you off on my way home. Give me half an hour to finish some paperwork while you take a shower?”

Clint nodded because Phil was always the practical one. Realistically, he knew he needed a shower and he wanted to grab his dufflebag and pack it with the few clothes and meager possessions he’d accumulated. He also grabbed the bow Tony had made for him, and made sure to get his SHIELD issue cellphone so he could keep in touch with Natasha until she made the transfer as well. Despite trying to keep himself busy, Clint found his mind wandering and by the time Phil came to lead him to the parking garage Clint was nervous as hell and ready to call the whole thing off.

“You can always come back here,” Phil assured, seeing the way Clint’s eyes darted from one thing to the next like a frightened animal. “SHIELD isn’t going anywhere. Bringing you here was about getting you settled, letting you know that you’ve got options. It’s pointless if you never exercise them.”

Clint nodded. The trip to the Tower – to Tony and Steve – resumed. Clint tried not to think about the logistics of it, the fact that Phil had probably filed paperwork about Clint’s move, about the fact that he had certainly contacted the Tower to let them know he was coming. Tried not to think about his reception, only hours after his alphas had been within arm’s length and neither of them had taken him with them. Maybe he wasn’t wanted? Maybe, after all, they were just stringing him along?

But then they were there, and Phil was waiting for him to get out, and everything was a blur. Clint felt dizzy, nauseous. He forced himself to climb out of the car, wave goodbye to Phil and give him a wan smile, and then walked into Stark Tower under his own power. He could hardly see straight. His hands were shaking so badly that JARVIS had to open the front door for him. He heard the AI welcome him and guide him to the elevator, where Clint managed to take a few deep breaths. The elevator stopped and Clint found his feet moving without any real thought.

When it all finally still, Clint was back where it had all started, in the guest bedroom on Tony and Steve’s floor, staring at the low-standing bed in a room that he’d assumed was to be his prison, but had actually been… fuck, his hospital? His church? He couldn’t find a word to describe it that didn’t sound cheesy. A garage, maybe? It was where they’d fixed him.

“If you’d called ahead, I’d have sent a car to pick you up,” Tony said from behind him. Clint turned to the alpha, who was dressed in loose cotton pants and shirtless. It made Clint realized that it was probably pretty damn late in the evening.

“Where’s Steve?” Clint wondered.

“He’s on the phone with Agent, discussing the specific requirements of you staying here. I guess you’re technically still under SHIELD supervision or whatever.” Tony shrugged, like the dealt with babysitting ex-assassins every day. “Just so you know, the deadline for moving in was the end of the week. You didn’t need to pack up shop tonight.”

“I know,” Clint replied, suddenly nervous all over again. What if they’d wanted until the end of the week to have time together, just him and Tony? What if he’d ruined it by coming to quickly? “I just… I wasn’t sure if I could do it, if I had to wait. Didn’t want to… lose my nerve.”

It was a slip, an admission of how much the whole idea of it frightened him. He turned away from Tony, unable to face the alpha. He hadn’t meant to say it like that, but he was practically overwhelmed. Going from months with this aching, consuming hole eating its way through him, missing them so acutely that it hurt, to suddenly having them in front of him, all around him. It was such a sudden change that it left his head reeling.

Tony’s arms came around him, pulling him back against a warm, bare chest. The press of the arc reactor through Clint’s clothes was familiar and soothing. Clint took a moment just to enjoy the familiar feeling of those arms around him, of Tony’s body against his back, of the familiar scent of soap and motor oil that always clung to Tony. He felt the tension drain out of him and let his eyes slipped closed. They might have stood there all night if Steve hadn’t found them.

“So, this isn’t as slow as I had planned,” he drawled from the doorway. Clint cast him a guilty look.

“Sorry, I guess I’m not terribly patient either.”

“Don’t let him scare you,” Tony teased, and kissed Clint’s neck provocatively. “He’s just as glad that you’re here as I am,” Tony promised. Clint tilted his head to look over his shoulder at Tony, and Tony took the advantage and claimed his mouth. It was just as warm as Clint had remembered, hot and firm and wet. Clint moaned against those lips.

“You’re not just here for the sex, are you?” Steve asked, and it served to break the kiss, to make Clint and Tony glance at him. Steve didn’t seem angry or jealous, more wary than anything. His plans had derailed, and he was adjusting, but the change made him uncertain. “I’m not sure,” Steve said to Clint, and his eyes slipped to Tony in a very pointed way, “that I could handle that.”

“Full of yourself much?” Tony joked, but it was to cover real fear. If either of them was worried about a one night stand mentality, it was Tony. It made Clint regret pushing things so fast for a moment, but he knew there was no way around it.

“I’m in for the long haul,” Clint promised, and reached out for Steve, who stepped into Clint’s space without protest. Clint found that he missed the feel of Steve’s skin just as much as Tony’s. The mix of their two scents around him sent his mind back to the days of his heat, when he thought he’d drown in their combined pheromones.

“You know, just because you’re not here exclusively for the sex, doesn’t mean there can’t be sex,” Tony offered with a chuckle. It was all the opening Clint needed.

“Fuck,” Clint cursed, his hands finding their way to Steve’s shoulders, and he found himself sandwiched between the two alphas, with Tony stepping up behind him. “I missed you fuckers so much. I want you so fucking bad!”

And suddenly the sandwich was a lot tighter, and he could feel Steve’s erection pressing against his own and Tony’s digging into his back. Steve was wearing a similar outfit to Tony’s sleeping pants, although Steve was wearing a tank top as well. Clint was still fully dressed, jeans, tshirt, and shoes all still on. He felt horribly over dressed, especially when Steve kissed him, just as searing as Tony’s had been, and teased a hand under his shirt. Clint moaned and rocked against him. Steve chuckled and broke the kiss, then leaned over Clint’s shoulder to kiss Tony. Clint shivered with excitement.

“Not here,” Steve protested as Tony started herding everyone toward the bed. He grabbed his lovers by the hands and pulled them out of that room, across the suite, and into the master bedroom. For a moment, Clint hesitated at the door while the other two entered and stripped. The guest room had been familiar. It had been easy to relax with them there, because they’d already christened it, so to speak. This new room, which was so much larger than the previous one, with a bed that was standard height and way more than standard size, was unfamiliar. For a moment, Clint baulked. But the room smelled like Steve and Tony, and he let their quiet words and touches sooth him, until he was entering this new room without protest. As much as he’d liked the last room, he didn’t want to be a guest any more.

When Clint breached the entrance, it was like Steve and Tony could feel his tension, because they surrounded him. Clint could tell that they’d been partners for a long time, because they worked in tandem to strip him, going slowly enough that their touches were lingering and erotic. It was in him to feel jealous of their ease with each other, but he let that thought go and simply basked in the attention. He was so focused on their touches that he almost missed the moment when they took him to the bed, with Steve slowly pressing him back against the mattress and Tony pulling him down.

“It’s not heat, right?” Tony quipped, and it was all Clint could do not to smack him for ruining the moment. “That means Clint gets to fuck me.”

“Absolutely not,” Steve countered. Tony pouted.

“Why not?”

“Because you already got him to fuck you. Without me,” Steve growled, but Clint knew him well enough to tell that it was mock-annoyance. “Which means it’s my turn.”

Clint grinned and tried to suppress it, but there was just something about the idea of fucking Captain America that excited him. Tony gave him an annoyed look and rolled his eyes.

“Yeah, don’t get too excited. He’s a pushy bottom.”

“I don’t think I have a problem with that,” Clint admitted with a grin. Steve smiled back at him. Tony growled in displeasure.

“I like this tag-team shit a hell of a lot less when it’s aimed at me,” he groused, and it won an honest chuckle from Clint.

And then it was Steve spread out beneath him, his knees spread wide, his cock bobbing between his legs, nestled in golden curls. Steve turned his blue eyes on Clint, and Clint’s eyes roved over the creamy, flawless skin of Steve’s back. Clint’s fingers reached out and settled on Steve’s tailbone, trailing up the valley of Steve’s spine, watching the muscles ripple on either side.

“He’s fucking perfect, isn’t he?” Tony questioned, and Clint could feel the other alpha settle behind him.

“Knock it off, you two,” Steve complained, a blush stealing to his face. Clint and Tony grinned at each other, and an unspoken conversation went between them. Clint moved between Steve’s legs and lapped at his testicles, grinning as Steve surged away with a surprised grunt, and then settled down and moaned as Clint’s tongue went to work. Above him, Clint could feel Tony moving, knew that he’d grabbed the lube and was stretching Steve’s hole. Clint felt more than heard Steve’s moan as Tony slipped a first finger inside, then a second, and finally a third before moving back.

Tony tapped Clint on the shoulders and Clint sat up high on his knees. Tony moved behind him, his own erection pressing against Clint’s lower back, and pulled Clint’s face around for a kiss. As Clint and Tony kissed over Clint’s shoulder, Tony’s hand stole around Clint’s hip and stroked over the omega’s cock, stroking sensually and spreading lube from his tip to his balls. Clint moaned into Tony’s mouth. When they broke their kiss, they found Steve’s eyes glued on them.

“You guys have no idea of the view you’re missing from up there.”

Clint and Tony cast a glance at each other and smiled. They disagreed silently.

Clint leaned over Steve then and lined his cock up with Steve’s hole, applying gentle pressure until Steve’s body swallowed him. Steve moaned as Clint stilled, and while Clint was giving Steve time to adjust, Tony moved behind Clint and began to finger his hole. The dual assault was almost more than Clint’s senses could take. He moaned and leaned his face against Steve’s back, peppering it with kisses between throaty moans. Steve chuckled beneath him and rolled his hips, making Clint gasp and then nip at Steve’s spine. Tony added another finger and then a third, scissoring his fingers to stretch the omega. It had been a long time since his last heat, and even though he remembered it, his body wasn’t as malleable as it had been last time. Tony was careful, though, and Clint was panting in pleasure by the time he felt the alpha move behind him and slowly press his cock inside.

“Damn, you’re tighter than last time,” Tony moaned, and pressed his cock inside inch by agonizing inch until Clint felt the alpha’s testicles nestle against his ass. Clint groaned, and found that he really fucking liked being the center of the pervert sandwich.

“What’s that grin for?” Steve asked. Tony tried to peer over Clint’s shoulder at his face, and Clint couldn’t hide his grin.

“Just… ah… a really fucking nice position.”

“Ah,” Steve replied with a knowing smile.

“Oh, we’ve got all kinds of new positions for you to try,” Tony promised.

“Think I’d rather finish with this one first,” Clint practically begged. Tony chuckled and then rocked his hips, making Steve and Clint moan in unison.

“Oh, I think I’m gonna like this,” Tony said with a gleeful smirk. Clint rolled his eyes and then rocked backwards against Tony. “You want it?” Tony asked him as he pulled back. “Go on then, take it!”

Clint moaned again and thrust forward into Steve, pulling off of Tony’s cock at the same time. His alphas moaned and Clint smiled. He fucked them like a pendulum then, pushing back against Tony’s cock before thrusting forward into Steve’s body. Steve moaned and thrashed beneath him, rocking back into Clint’s thrusts, while Tony grabbed Clint’s hips and snapped his cock into the omega’s body on the return.

It got to Steve first, which was a surprise because Clint wasn’t even fisting his cock. Suddenly, though, Steve was thrusting back desperately, his own hand working his cock frantically, and his moans turning into panting screams. He came hard, shooting his seed across the bedspread, his body clenching down on Clint’s cock as Clint thrust deep into the alpha.

“That’s a first,” Tony commented, then shoved Clint forward until he fell on top of Steve, pinning the alpha under his weight. “Was our omega too much for you?” Tony teased.

“Shut up, Tony,” Steve growled, but it lacked heat. Surprisingly, Tony obeyed, thrusting into Clint hard enough that Steve could feel it. Clint moaned against Steve’s shoulder and Steve shivered. The alpha was spent, certainly, but the feel of the omega’s cock inside him was still sending little sparks of pleasure through his over-sensitized body.

With Clint pinned against Steve on the bed, Tony quit holding back and began to fuck the omega in earnest, with each thrust pushing the omega deeper into Steve. Clint could hardly decide which way to go, caught between meeting Tony’s thrusts and shoving his cock deeper inside Steve. Clint could feel his orgasm approaching and grabbed a hold of Steve’s shoulders, clinging to the alpha like a lifeline. As the orgasm hit him, Clint screamed and bit into the soft flesh of Steve’s shoulder to quiet himself, using his grip on the alpha to shove his cock deeper inside. Steve moaned at the dual assault- the pain from the omega’s teeth in his shoulder and the pleasure of his cock in his ass, shooting heat deep into his body.

Behind them, the feel of Clint’s body spasming in orgasm had triggered Tony’s, and Tony was now pounding Clint’s ass. He had just enough cognitive power left to remember to keep his knot out of the omega, knowing that being tied to him right now would be neither ideal nor pleasurable. It made pounding the omega a little tricky, and eventually he settled both his hands on Clint’s hips to help control how deeply he thrust. By the time his orgasm took him, his knot had swollen to the point where Clint’s body wouldn’t easily accept it, and Tony managed to slam into the omega with a scream without worrying that he’d tie the other man. It was a good thing, too, because Tony forgot all his resolve when the orgasm took him, and he came so hard that he saw spots before toppling onto Clint’s back.

They lay there for a while, as a panting, sweaty heap, before they began to move again. Tony was the first to pull himself out, followed quickly by Clint pulling out of Steve when Tony’s weight left his back. They were all three sweaty and covered in sticky semen and lube. Still, no one suggested leaving the bed, not even for cleanup. Steve and Tony bracketed Clint, as though afraid that he’d make a break for it. But Clint wasn’t going anywhere. As Steve and Tony settled on either side of him, both of them exhausted and half asleep themselves, Clint could only smile at them as he fought his own lethargy, trying to stay awake for a few minutes longer, just to watch his alphas settle around him. In minutes, they were all sated, content, and asleep.


	21. Chapter 21

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> THIS IS EPILOGUE 2, IT BEGINS AT THE END OF CHAPTER 19. Please disregard chapter 20 for this chapter to make sense. I had requests for two different pairings to be the final relationship, so I did two different epilogues. I hope you like it. It turned out a little longer than I thought, please let me know what you think. And I plan to do a prologue that tells you about Steve and Tony's time with Loki, so that should be the last chapter for this story. 
> 
>    
> Thanks guys! I was a little iffy about the reception of this chapter at first, but I got some amazing feedback. Please let me know what you think, I really appreciate it. Thanks!

                “Is everything ready?”

                “Yes,” Phil replied, his voice calm and steady despite this being the third time Clint had asked in the last hour. “Do you want to go over it again?”

                “No, you’re right, it’s fine,” Clint quickly assured. “Just, we got everything, right?”

                “There’s bottled water under the bed. We’ve got food being delivered every day for the next nine days. Steve and Tony are staying here, at the Tower, just in case you need them. Dr. Banner and JARVIS will monitor our progress and check in periodically. And Thor is on call in Asguard in case we feel he’s needed as well.”

                “But he won’t be, right?” Clint asked, needing the reassurance.

                “It’s unlikely. Dr. Banner monitored you going into heat this time, and everything looks normal. He said we’ll probably pull it off just fine without additional help, and probably in shorter than two weeks.”

                “Yeah, that’s…” Clint trailed off, still shifting on his feet, pacing like he wanted to run. Phil withheld a small sigh.

                “Clint, I’m going to ask you something, and I want you to know that you can say yes. I won’t be mad, won’t take it as a personal insult, and I won’t let it affect our relationship. Do you want Steve and Tony to do this with you?”

                Clint contemplated that quietly, his body finally stilling. Phil watched him, wishing he could read the archer’s mind. Sometimes Clint commented that Phil could, but the truth was that Clint was often difficult to read. It was one of the things Phil like so much about him, that the omega had the ability to surprise him. This time, though, Phil wished he had window or a clue.

                The thought of Steve and Tony was tempting. Clint could admit it to himself, although he refused to admit it to Phil. If Thor had been around, there was a good possibility that he would have taken the Thunder God up on the offer. He and Steve, and to some extent Tony, had already brought him safely through one heat, and it was tempting to give himself over and let them bring him through another.

This was his first heat since he’d come off suppressants, nearly sixteen months ago, and he was completely, irrationally terrified. For the last three weeks, along with a period of being perpetually hungry and horny, he had been plagued with nightmares and coldsweats. He’d wake up from a dead sleep and crawl into the air vents, something he hadn’t done in nearly six months since he and Phil had moved into the tower together.

                Phil hadn’t made a move right away. Through a full six months of training with SHIELD, past Natasha’s successful (and short) heat with Thor, and through their very first mission with SHIELD, Coulson had been a complete professional. He’d never made a pass at Clint or Natasha, never belittled them for being omegas (or allowed anyone else to do so in his presence), and never forced them to do anything they weren’t comfortable with. By the time Phil had finally kissed him, Clint had convinced himself that Phil’s words during heat had been just that; brought on by Clint’s pheromones and nothing more.

                It had been just after Clint’s first mission for SHIELD, when he and Natasha had been deployed to Budapest with Phil as their handler. It had all went to hell, with there being twice as many hostiles as intelligence had indicated, but they’d pulled together under Coulson’s guidance and somehow managed to pull it out of the bag. Natasha had taken a knife to the thigh while keeping it out of Clint’s back, and Clint was pretty sure he was never going to live that down.

On the evac helicopter home, while Natasha was getting stiches and being surprisingly nice to the beta medic, Clint had been chatting with Phil about classic cars. One minute Clint was talking about engine sizes and original tires, and the next there were two warm, solid lips against his own and he was moaning against the other man’s mouth. Clint found his fingers twisted in the fabric of Phil’s shirt and pulled the alpha close, meshing their lips together. Gently, Phil pried Clint’s fingers from his clothes and pulled back, a satisfied little smile on his face.

                “I thought you weren’t interested,” Clint had mumbled, still stunned by the suddenness of the kiss.

                “What, you thought that I wouldn’t want you once the heat was over? That I was only interested because I can’t control my alpha impulses? Or maybe that I was only interested in taking something away from Steve and Tony?”

                Clint didn’t say anything, mostly because he had thought exactly all those things, up until the kiss three seconds ago. Phil smiled and took a sip of his beer.

                “I didn’t pursue you, because I don’t want a quick fuck. I want a relationship, something long-term. I like you. You’re strong and loyal, quick and deadly. You’ve got a mouth that won’t quit and the body of an athlete. I won’t lie, I find those qualities very attractive.”

                “That’s what you like about me? That I’m a killer?”

                “You’re powerful. I’ve said before that it’s attractive.”

                “I don’t feel powerful,” Clint denied. Phil tilted his head and gave Clint a contemplating look.

                “I’d wager you don’t feel very attractive either, but here we are, and I’m telling you that you’re both.”

                “I don’t know if I believe you.”

                “But you want to,” Phil countered. “What about the reverse? Are you interested in starting an alpha nearly a decade your senior, who might not be able to keep up with your demands as an omega? One who spends most of his time on paperwork and who likes geeky collectibles and trading cards?”

                “I’ve seen you fight. I know you can keep up with me, and I’ll be lucky if you don’t leave me in the dust. And I like that you handle the worst of the papertrail, freeing me and Natasha up for the things we’re good at.”

                “So can I assume you’re willing to give this a chance?”

                “I want to, but I’m not sure I know how.”

                “Let me lead, then. I want to take this slowly. We’ll start out with some dates, and we’ll see what we think from there.”

                But Clint didn’t like to take things slow. Over the next few weeks, Coulson took Clint out on traditional dates (movies, pizza, cars, beer) and nontraditional dates (learning to fight from jujitsu masters, scubadiving through underwater caves, taking a seminar on explosive projectiles together). Clint found that, as well as he worked with Coulson on the job, he enjoyed spending time with him as Phil after work.

The first time they had sex, Coulson volunteered to bottom. Clint was shocked that there was yet another alpha who liked to bottom. Coulson had laughed and told him that, outside of heat, more than half of same-sex couples liked to trade places once in a while, despite their dynamic type. Clint hadn’t believed him at first, but it didn’t matter because Coulson was hot and his and ready.

                The sex was fast and sweet. Phil knew what he liked as a bottom, and Clint was more than happy to give it to him. Clint found that he liked being on top, being the aggressor. He liked slipping his fingers into Phil’s tight, hot hole and listening to Phil pant beneath him. He liked the moan that Phil gave when Clint’s fingers hit that sensitive spot inside him. And he liked the way Phil’s legs wrapped around his hips, how his heels dug into Clint’s back and pulled him deeper inside.

                “I can turn around,” Phil offered. “I like it on my knees as well.”

                “I’d rather see your face,” Clint admitted hesitantly. “I like… seeing your pleasure,” Clint told him. He didn’t tell him that it was because Clint was afraid that he’d hurt Phil. And if he hurt Phil, if Phil even gave the smallest sound or expression of pain, Clint knew he’d lose all his nerve. This wasn’t heat; there was no biological imperative that they have sex. Clint knew it was important- it felt good, it brought couples physically and emotionally closer together, it helped create a stable relationship – his therapist had said as much.

But he was still skittish about sex. His memories of heat sex were vague and nightmarish, and overlapped with pleasant memories of Tony, Steve, and Thor. The Avenger’s gentle and patient style of sex had redeemed the act for him, but his mind was still on the fence about which style was the norm and which was just life screwing with him. He couldn’t… The idea of causing pain to Phil, any kind of pain, horrified him. Clint didn’t know his psyche too well, but he was pretty sure it would make him swear off of sex forever.

“Don’t…” Clint said, and hated how his voice practically trembled as he lined his cock up with Phil’s hole. “Don’t let me hurt you,” he begged.

“I won’t,” Phil assured. “Clint, I promise, you won’t hurt me.”

There was strength in Phil’s eyes, a determination, that assured Clint more than his words could. Clint pressed forward hesitantly, waiting for Phil’s body to reject him, expecting there to be resistance. Instead, Phil’s body practically pulled him inside. Clint was shocked at how easy it was, how smoothly Phil’s body accepted his cock.

This wasn’t heat. Phil wasn’t built for this. They weren’t high on pheromones and ready to fuck anything in sight. There was no way it should have been that easy.

But Phil moaned, digging his nails into Clint’s hips, and Clint had the unexpected feeling that maybe he was doing it right, maybe he wouldn’t fuck this up. Would fuck it up. Would fuck it up appropriately? But Phil moaned again and sentence structure was the last thing on Clint’s mind.

“All the way,” Phil told him, and Clint wasn’t surprised that Phil was still in charge even when he bottomed. Leading was just too much a part of Phil to let go of during sex. “Wanna feel your balls against my ass,” Phil rasped, and it was just about the crudest thing Clint had ever heard the alpha say. Clint shivered with excitement, something in his brain loving the idea of being controlled and on top at the same time. All the perks of being on top, with none of the responsibility of being in charge.

“It’s too deep,” Clint protested, and Phil laughed.

“I don’t want to hurt your ego, but it’s definitely not,” Phil said, and it was one of the best things about Phil, that he didn’t gloss shit over. “I know all that stuff about alpha’s length being the best, but it’s all bull. Give me a nice, slim omega cock that can pound me without messing around with a knot any day.”

“Someone’s tried out all his options,” Clint teased with a smile. They were both open about their past sexual experiences. Clint wasn’t surprised about his lack of jealousy.

“I’m not sure you noticed, but I’m no blushing virgin. I can tell you what I like, and I can tell you what I don’t. I can also tell you that if you don’t get that cock in me in the next thirty seconds, I’m gonna flip us and do it myself.”

“Try it,” Clint dared.

It would have been a stupid dare, if Clint hadn’t wanted Phil on top. As it was, Clint had no idea where the other man got the leverage to flip them, or how he managed to do it without coming off Clint’s cock. All he did know was that in the next instant, Clint was laying on his back and Phil was impaling himself, inch by agonizing inch, onto Clint’s cock. Clint could only curse in response, but it was okay. Phil smiled down at him and proceeded to ride Clint’s cock with excruciating slowness.

By the end, Clint was begging and probably putting fingerprints on Phil’s hips. Phil had fisted his own cock and was now bouncing on Clint’s pelvis, using his legs for leverage and leaning back so he could balance while still stroking himself off. It was the sight of Phil ejaculating and the feel of hot semen splattering over Clint’s chest that caused him to orgasm. The physical proof of Phil’s pleasure relaxed something inside of Clint, and he let go and just felt the warmth of Phil’s body and the pleasure of being inside of him. The way Phil’s body spasmed around Clint’s cock nearly undid the omega, and he planted his heels in the bed and thrust his hips straight upwards. Phil gasped and cursed, his hands leaving his own spent cock to help him balance. It only took Clint a few swift thrusts before he was coming, snapping his cock into Phil and shooting his seed deep inside the alpha. Phil kissed him as pleasure racked his body, swallowing his moans as the pleasure abated.

When it was over, and after the several minutes when the echoes of pleasure died away, then Phil cleaned them up with a damp towel that he’d stashed by the bedside. Even in this, in wiping Clint’s most intimate places, he was gentle and thorough, making sure to clean all the sticky residue away without putting undue friction on Clint’s sensitive skin. Clint could only lay there and smile, wondering how he’d been lucky enough to land such a perfect guy.

                After their first initial encounter, Clint was surprised to find that Phil was an adventurous lover. Clint couldn’t count how many times he got pulled into a bathroom stall and sucked off, or made out under the open sky on a rooftop. Office trysts, which Clint had been stubbornly opposed to, happened more often and more dangerously than Clint liked to admit. He couldn’t count the amount of times he’d had to hide an erection under a stack of paperwork when someone unexpectedly knocked on Phil’s office door. Phil was totally unflappable, even though Clint knew that he was hiding an equally impressive erection under his desk. It made Clint laugh, no matter how close they came to getting caught.

                Still, Clint couldn’t help but think that something was missing. They spent a lot of time at Phil’s apartment, but Clint never quite moved in. It wasn’t that he didn’t want to (he practically lived there anyway) or that there wasn’t enough space (he’d had bedrooms the size of Phil’s bathroom), but there just seemed to be something between them, causing a barrier that Clint couldn’t quite get across. There was a distance, still, despite all the sex and the dates and the time they spent together. And Clint couldn’t quite put his finger on what it was.

                As usual, Phil knew exactly what it was.

                “You need to go see Tony and Steve,” Phil told him one evening, sitting together at the first restaurant Phil had taken him to. It was curiously close to the Stark Tower, and Clint had a sudden feeling of apprehension.

                “Not today,” Phil continued with a roll of his eyes. “Just, in general. You need to get closure from the two of them. You went through a lot together.”

                “You’re not trying to hand me off, are you?” Clint asked, and he phrased it as a joke, but it really wasn’t. Phil didn’t laugh.

                “I know you miss them, and I know you feel guilty about it. I don’t want you to do either. So go talk to them. I trust you with them.”

                Clint couldn’t help but wonder if Phil trusted him enough to be around them, or if he trusted them enough to be around him. He wondered if they would even remember him, outside of heat and so many months later. After all, he hadn’t been their first omega in heat, and they both lived busy lives, and they had each other. Clint wondered, fearfully, if Phil had planned it to be a blow to his ego, that the two wouldn’t even remember him. But Clint put those thoughts away, knowing full well that while other people had been cruel to him in his past, Phil had never done anything to harm him.

                “Would you… can you plan it for me?” Clint asked, and hated how hesitant his voice sounded.

                “Where would you be most comfortable seeing them? Here? At the Tower? SHIELD?” Phil offered, and Clint loved how the agent just stepped in for him, with no hesitation.

                “What about the coffee shop, just across from SHIELD,” Clint asked, then, “Unless you think the Tower would be better? I know you’ve been thinking about having Natasha and me join the Avengers.”

                Phil shook his head and said, “The Avengers Initiative is completely unrelated to this. If you feel more comfortable near SHIELD, then that’s where I’ll ask them to meet you.”

                And that was the end of the conversation, or at least that part. Clint trusted Phil to plan the meeting and to give him all the relevant information. It lifted something of a weight from Clint’s shoulders, even just having the meeting on the agenda. He put it from his mind, but felt better anyway.

Meeting Tony and Steve again was not nearly as bad as Clint had feared, but it did begin with Tony kissing him square on the mouth and Clint punching the alpha in the stomach.

“I told you he’d let me kiss him!” Tony crowed, clutching his stomach. Clint had missed his weak point, the arc reactor, because he still liked Tony. But he’d planted a solid fist in the alpha’s gut half on instinct and half to warn him that Clint was taken, thanks. Now fuck off.

“He didn’t let you kiss him,” Steve protested, and thankfully didn’t look at all perturbed that Clint had put his lover on the ground. Clint was glad, because Captain America would be a lot harder to best than Iron Man-out-of-armor. “You jumped him and he put you down. Saying ‘let’ implies consent.”

“It still happened, you owe me $10.”

Steve wasn’t paying attention to Tony anymore, though. He stretched out a hand to give Clint a firm handshake. He smiled that all-American smile, and it made Clint a little glad that he’d come. Beside him, Phil accepted his own handshake in turn.

“You look well,” Steve commented lightly. “We weren’t sure… when you took off… I mean, we worried you’d find your way back to the wrong hands.”

“Might have,” Clint admitted. “But there was someone there to stop me,” and if his eyes strayed tellingly to Phil, Steve didn’t show a reaction.

“I’m glad you decided to work for the goodguys,” Steve said.

“To hell with the good guys, when are you going to come work for the Avengers?” Tony growled from the ground, because the billionaire couldn’t stand not to be the center of attention. It actually did make Clint smile.

“When you guys get me my own shooting range and hottub, Mr. Moneybags, that’s when,” Clint joked.

“Done,” Tony replied, and looked to Phil seriously. “You heard him, you guys are moving in.”

“We’ll see,” Phil replied, and there was no arguing with that tone. It made Clint go, “Wait, what?” in his head. But then Tony was climbing off the ground and pulling Clint into a hug, and Clint just let it go.

“Seriously man,” Clint heard Tony whisper into his ear. “Don’t ever do that to me again. We were scared shitless. And we missed you.”

“Sorry,” was all Clint could think to say in the face of that much raw emotion. He honestly hadn’t thought they’d even notice he was gone, not after the initial panic. It made sometime inside him hurt in a good way, like a pulled muscle. Like something that hadn’t been stretched in a long time.

Then Phil’s hand was on his shoulder, and Tony was pulling back. Steve took his place, pulling Clint into a strong and familiar embrace. Clint could feel Phil’s presence at his elbow and worried for a moment that he might get territorial, might feel the need to posture in front of Cap because Clint was his omega. Clint… wasn’t really sure what he would do if that happened. On the one hand, Steve could probably wipe the floor with Phil. On the other hand, Clint couldn’t let that happen.

But the hand on Clint’s shoulder was as possessive as Phil got, and Phil smiled at Steve when he separated from Clint. Clint knew Phil had a bit of a fanboy thing for Captain America, so he wasn’t surprised when Phil said, “You still haven’t signed my trading cards.”

The following blush from the unflappable super-soldier, however, made both of them laugh. It served to break the tension, and conversation flowed easily from there, talking about everything from SHIELD training to Tony’s newest projects. They sat down and had coffee and doughnuts and chatted like old friends. By the end of the night, Clint knew that he could work with the Avengers, if that’s what they wanted, and he was determined to stay in touch with Tony and Steve no matter what.

                At ten months, the decision was made to move Clint and Natasha into Stark Tower, which had been officially renamed the Avenger’s Tower (Tony bitched, but he seemed secretly pleased that his home had become a superhero clubhouse). Natasha got her own floor entirely, which she liked because it gave her some space away from all the boys, and Phil moved onto the floor designed for Clint. Clint thought it was a good idea, to have them all in one place in case of an emergency, and he had to admit that the Tower was a big step up from the SHIELD barracks and even Phil’s offsite apartment. Still, he felt a little bad about having Phil move in with him. He could never really be sure if Phil wanted to live in the Tower, or if he just wanted to live with Clint badly enough that he put up with it. But Phil never brought it up and Clint couldn’t find a way to ask him.

               Living in the Tower was oddly familiar to Clint. It reminded him of living in the circus when he was very young, before he’d presented as an omega and been picked up to be an assassin. There were constant presences in the Tower (Steve and Tony) and then there were semi-constant presences in the Tower (Thor, Natasha, Bruce, Phil, and Clint himself) and then there were a parade of people who wandered through and back out (Pepper, Rhodey, Fury, Hill, and a whole slew of employees for Tony and SHIELD). There was a communal floor, housing a kitchen, dining room, den, rec-room, and conference room, which was where almost all of the visitors were taken. It helped Clint feel like he still had safety and privacy on his floor, while also giving the Tower a sense of community.

                It happened more often than not, that Clint and Natasha would get sent on undercover missions to regions where it would be too dangerous to have their handlers physically with them. In those cases, their handlers would stay in touch using tech, and usually was just a little voice in Clint’s ear. Despite how advanced SHIELD technology was, it wasn’t unheard of to lose contact for a couple days. On the opposite end of the spectrum, sometimes they got sent to places where they needed a SHIELD handler to act as a negotiator or when they needed the handler to decode and translate data to them at rapid speeds. In which case, their handler would go with them. The two types of missions very rarely happened at the same time.

                Nearly two months after Phil and Clint had settled into their floor, Clint got sent on an undercover mission to find a cell hiding out in a mountainous region in Kazakhstan. Natasha, at the same time, got sent in for negotiations in Brazil and needed Phil on-site for the more delicate parts (Natasha was great at intimidating people, less great at getting them to trust her). The missions were supposed to be a week long. Clint lost contact on the third day. He knew there was no way for SHIELD to send a retrieval team that deep without causing an international incident. He was on his own, and while the targets went down easily, the hike to the extraction point was more difficult. He knew if he missed his departure date he would be assumed a casualty, although they would leave the point active for at least six months. He hoped it wouldn’t take that long.

Twelve days later, he walked into the Avengers Tower bone tired and hoping Phil had a better time of it then he did. It… didn’t seem that way. There was Phil, curled up in the corner of the couch, deep bags under his eyes like he hadn’t slept since Clint had gone out of contact. His phone was in his fingers, and Clint knew that Phil would have come to meet him in the evac, but Clint had asked for immediate extraction, and had come directly to the Tower when he got back. They’d wanted to hold him at SHIELD for debriefing and medical evaluation, but Clint had… well, he’d disappeared. It was usually Phil who pushed him through the formalities, and with him missing, Clint just kind of… slipped away. SHIELD was used to him, they knew he wouldn’t leave without giving them the necessary information, everything else would get in order when he resurfaced. Or Phil resurfaced. Or Phil dragged him back to the surface.

There was a melted gallon of icecream on the floor, and the television was playing Star Trek from the 80’s (Phil was a secret Trekkie, it wasn’t something he broadcast like his Captain America fandom, but something he enjoyed just as much). There was an afghan thrown casually over him, and the hand that wasn’t clutching his phone was gripping the blanket in a deathgrip. There was a frown on his face that signified that a nightmare was on its way. Clint wondered how many nightmares he’d missed.

He had to guess a lot, because Steve was curled at the other end of the couch, mimicking Phil’s position, but his face was relaxed in sleep. Clint stared, feeling oddly relieved that someone had come to check on Phil while he was gone, but at the same time oddly... jealous? He was too tired to identify his feelings on the matter. Safe to say, his emotions were mixed.

He stood there for several more minutes, wondering whether or not to wake up Phil. It was a testament to how tired he really was, that Tony – loud, obnoxious Tony – managed to sneak up on him and place a gentle hand on Clint’s arm. (Later, he would be horribly embarrassed. At the time, though, he was just happy that he didn’t punch the alpha.)

“You okay?” Tony whispered after he made Clint jump.

“I’m…” he started, but the word “fine” stuck in his throat. Clint was raw and tired, having been on edge for weeks now. He knew that he had wounds that needed treating, that he should probably wake and reassure Phil, but he was just so… tired.

“C’mon,” Tony whispered and pulled him away. Clint went, because doing anything else would have required him to think, and he just couldn’t. Tony led him quietly out of the room and down a floor, to Steve and Tony’s familiar floor. Bruce was already waiting there, and Clint wasn’t sure if Tony had somehow signaled Jarvis to call him or if Bruce had been waiting there since Clint walked home.

“Is it just the knuckles?” Bruce asked, fishing the tweezers out of his kit, and Clint really appreciates that neither of them want small talk. He didn’t feel like he could manage it if they did. Instead, he held out his hand, which was covered in tiny cuts holding miniscule shards of glass. The window had lost, but Clint had taken a few wounds to get through the reinforced glass. His back held the rest of the cuts, from when he’d dove through and landed his back on the rest of the shards.

“My back,” Clint told Bruce, then shrugged out of his shirt. It was a black one, the one he normally wore under his armor. It was caked in blood and sweat, so Clint didn’t say anything when Tony picked it up and dropped it in the garbage.

“Shower first,” Bruce advised, “then I’ll pick out anything that hasn’t come out on its own. It doesn’t look like there’s anything that needs stitches, but they need cleaned before they get infected.”

Clint nodded, but it took Tony leading him by the hand to get him into the shower. Tony was saying something, a steady stream of words, and it was soothing although Clint really had no idea what he was talking about. Tony led him to the shower on their floor, but not the one in the bedroom, the one in the guest room where Clint had stayed during heat. The familiarity helped Clint a bit, but he was still exhausted and unbalanced. Tony just kept talking, the sound of his voice gave Clint something to focus on.

It wasn’t enough to bring Clint back, not even enough to get him to take his own clothes off, but it was enough to keep him from hiding in the air-vents until he felt safer. It was enough to get him to follow Tony into the shower, to let Tony gently scrub away the smell of blood and smoke and fear, to keep him docile as Tony dried him, dressed him in a pair of Tony’s own sweats, and handed him over to Bruce. And if Tony held his hand and kept talking while Bruce fished the worst of the pieces of glass from Clint’s hands and back, if he sat with Clint as the archer nodded off and Bruce finished cleaning the wounds, Tony doubted Clint would even remember it.

Tony practically had to carry Clint back to his floor. He probably would have let Clint sleep in the guest room, if he hadn’t known how badly Clint needed is own room, and his own bed, and his own lover in that bed. So Tony prodded until Clint was on his feet and dragged the archer back up the elevator and put him in his own bed. Then he went to get his missing piece.

It didn’t take long before Tony was back, this time leading Phil in much the same way he’d led Clint. He drew the bleary-eyed alpha into the room, drew back the covers, and let Phil slide in beside Clint. Steve was there too, standing in the doorway and looking relieved. But to Clint and Phil, nobody else existed but the two of them. And the fell asleep wrapped together like the both needed to hold on or the other might disappear.

Just before he fell asleep again (into the first real sleep Phil had managed in weeks), Phil mumbled, “You’ve got some great friends.” And Clint couldn’t help but agree.

                It wasn’t the last incident like that for either of them. They’d both taken jobs that were too dangerous for there not to be close calls. But after that, every time they worried for each other, they knew who they could turn to for comfort. And when Tony and Steve had days that the other was missing or wounded, they counted on Phil and Clint as well. It was the same with Thor and Natasha, they would learn later, after one or the other had come back from a hard mission. Eventually, and not after some exhaustive testing of boundaries, they found that they could all rely on one another, on the battlefield and off.

                By the time Phil worked up the nerve to ask Clint to bottom, Clint has already been thinking that they should try it for nearly a month. They were within four months of expecting Clint’s next heat, and neither of them thought it would be a good idea to try it for the first time during his heat. But when the words are actually in the air between them, Clint gave a firm but frightened no, and then hid out on the roof for the next three hours.

                It wasn’t that he didn’t trust Phil. It was more that Phil was this ideal alpha in his mind, one that never yelled at him or controlled him or hurt him. Clint was afraid – bone deep terrified, if he was honest – that taking Phil’s knot would suddenly make him into one of those alphas. Or possibly, and this was just as probable as far as Clint was concerned, that his mind wouldn’t be able to distinguish between Phil and all the other alphas who had taken advantage of him, that Phil would forever be stained by the memory of all the others.

                It hadn’t happened with Steve and Tony. Intellectually, Clint knew that. He knew that it was possible for him to take a knot without associating it with the trauma of his past. He’d done it before, with the Avengers. It was very likely that allowing Phil to top would only improve his feelings toward being on bottom, and if nothing else he knew he wanted to try to have his heat with Phil.

                “You ready to come in?” Phil had asked him eventually. There was a bit of wind up on the roof, and Clint was starting to shiver. He hopped down from his perch.

                “Sorry,” he apologized, feeling ridiculous for running away. Phil shook his head.

                “Don’t be. I shouldn’t have asked. You’ll tell me when you’re ready, I won’t push you into anything you don’t want.”

                “No,” Clint protested, and grabbed Phil by the hand. “Don’t… Please, don’t give up on me.”

                “I’m not giving up,” Phil assured, “but I want to wait until you’re ready.”

                “I’m not sure I’ll ever be ready.”

                “Then we won’t do it. I don’t need to top you to be happy in our relationship.”

                “I…” and Clint hesitated, because this was the first time this had ever been his choice, for no other reason than that he wanted to, “I think I want to try.”

                Phil smiled, and led him back inside.

                They didn’t try that night, obviously. Clint was too high-strung, and Phil wasn’t really in the mood after Clint’s disappearing act. Phil suggested, subtly, that maybe they would have a free evening on Friday, before the weekend. Clint agreed, and was relieved to have a plan in place, if not terribly relaxed about the idea.

                By the time Friday rolled around, Clint had managed to psych himself out and psyche himself up at least six different times. When Phil walked in the door (having stayed late to catch up on paperwork and, perhaps, give Clint a bit of time to himself) he was assaulted with, “Get your damn clothes off and fuck me!” Clint was naked, standing in the middle of their livingroom, his hands shaking with nervous energy. Phil hesitated at the door and considered, momentarily, going back out. It was a childish thought, Phil knew that, and attributed it to a long, tedious day at the office. Phil sighed, put aside the takeout he’d brought home, and approached his lover.

                “Clint? Love… I don’t think this is productive,” Phil rationalized, because he’d seen Clint this wound up before, but never because of him. He took Clint’s hand, felt the tremors running under Clint’s skin, and couldn’t help but wonder if he really knew what he was doing.

                “I don’t want to be productive! I just… I just wanna get this over with.”

                “Clint,” Phil called softly, and he struggled to keep the disappointment out of his voice. “If it’s something you have to struggle to get through, then maybe it isn’t meant to happen.”

                “No, Phil…” Clint tried, because there was nothing he hated more than disappointing Phil. “I just… It’s… I want to do this for you.”

                “And I want to do this for us. Can we… Please… Can we take it slower for me, love?” And Clint was practically helpless when Phil said please, so Clint sat down on the couch and accepted that he was going to be wined and dined and thoroughly loved before the sex was going to happen.

                “I’m not putting my clothes back on,” Clint said sullenly, and Phil just laughed and kissed him on the top of the head before going to grab the takeout from the kitchen.

                “You won’t hear me complain,” Phil assured him.

                They had dinner together. Phil put on a cheesy action flick and let Clint make fun of it, enjoying Clint’s comments more than the movie itself. When it was over, Phil made Clint go take a hot shower.

                When Clint came out of the shower, Phil was laying naked on their bed, his cock already half-hard. And really, that just made everything so much easier, didn’t it? Clint slid onto the bed next to Phil and wrapped his hand around Phil’s cock, giving a few strong strokes to it.

                “Feeling better?” Phil asked softly, but there was a salacious smile on his face.

                “How do you always know how to handle me?”

                “Oh,” Phil laughed, “I think you’re the one handling me.” And he looked pointedly at Clint’s hand, which was stroking Phil’s cock.

                “Shut up,” Clint groused, but didn’t stop stroking. Phil moaned and pulled Clint on top of him, grinding their erections together. Phil’s cock was hard, but his knot was still flaccid, and looked like just a bit of extra skin around the base of his cock. Stoking their cocks together like this, it was almost impossible to tell the alpha’s knotted cock from the omega’s unknotted cock.

                “Do you wish it was like this all the time?” Phil asked.

                “What, you mean do I wish you were an omega?”

                “Yeah.”

                “Wish I were an alpha,” Clint huffed. “Or maybe a beta. Anything without all these… biological imperatives. But otherwise? It’s kinda nice having you as an alpha. I can’t imagine going through another heat… the rest of my heats… without you topping me.”

                “We’d make it work,” Phil assured. “Sometimes I wonder if it would be easier if I were an omega, if I could understand what you’re going through. But I like being an alpha.”

                “Well don’t feel bad about it. Just because I was given a shit hand doesn’t mean you should feel bad. It’s not your fault.”

                Phil gave him a look that could only be described as sad.

                “I don’t want you to think of it as a ‘shit hand.’ Being an omega… it shouldn’t be a punishment. A lot of people like it.” Clint scoffed, and Phil smiled sadly. “See, that’s what I want to fix. I want to use your heat to show you what it’s supposed to be like. Will you let me?”

                “Well, yeah,” Clint said and looked just a bit baffled, and then shrugged. “I mean, whatever you want. It’s not like you can make it any worse.”

                “You really know how to make a guy feel confident,” Phil teased. Clint rolled his eyes, but his hips began to thrust more vigorously against Phil’s. When Clint moaned, Phil snagged a bottle of lube from the table beside the bed. Clint gave him a questioning look.

                “Never had sex outside of heat before?” Phil questioned.

                “Never… never as the bottom,” Clint admitted. Phil smiled.

                “You don’t self-lubricate outside of heat, so having some is important. Don’t worry, I’ll be gentle.”

                “I fucking hope not,” Clint replied, and gave a particularly vicious thrust against Phil. Phil managed to get the bottle open with one hand and poured some of the slick onto his fingers. He didn’t really like the idea of trying to finger Clint without seeing his hole, but Phil decided against flipping their positions for the moment. Clint was feeling too vulnerable, being on bottom would make him feel trapped.

So, instead, Phil slid his fingers along the crack of Clint’s ass, smiling as the omega groaned and thrust back against his hand. He let his fingers run along Clint’s skin without hurry, and eventually they found Clint’s entrance. He rubbed gently at first, stopping to get more lube since most of it had missed the mark as he tried to find Clint’s hole. He made little circles around Clint’s pucker, then eventually started to place gentle pressure at the center of the ring of muscles. By the time the Phil’s finger slipped inside, Clint was so far gone that he didn’t even notice. Phil smiled and pressed his luck, slipping a second finger in when the first met with almost no resistance.

“Is that…”

“Just my fingers,” Phil assured.

“How many?” Clint asked. It was clear from his voice that he was having trouble concentrating. His hips were still rocking against Phil’s pelvis, and Phil could feel Clint’s cock slide against his own, leaking precum and still rock hard. Phil had been concerned that nervousness might have hindered Clint’s libido, but there were no signs of that.

“Two. About to be three,” Phil warned as he slipped another inside. The third was a bit of a squeeze. He had to pull his other fingers out to the first knuckle before the third could be admitted, then he rocked them gently into Clint until he hit the second knuckle. Then he stopped. His cock wasn’t any thicker than that, and his knot would inflate inside Clint. The point of it was to not fit past that ring of muscle, so there was no point in stretching it more.

                “Are you sure you want to take it the whole way tonight?” Phil offered when he felt that Clint had adjusted to three fingers, and ready to move on.

                “Yeah,” Clint assured him, rocking his hips against Phil’s fingers. “Might not get up the courage to try it again.

Clint hissed when Phil pulled his fingers out, his hips thrusting back in an encouraging manner. He blushed when he realized what he was doing and hid his face in Phil’s shoulder. Phil chuckled and said, “You know, that’s kind of the point.”

“It’s humiliating.”

“It’s not humiliating when I do it for you,” Phil countered, because the last thing he wanted was for Clint to think he had a reason to be ashamed.

“That… That’s different.”

Phil made a noise of disagreement, but let it drop. He lined his cock up with Clint’s hole by touch alone, not wanting to dislodge Clint from a position that he was obviously relaxed in. Clint’s weight was supported on his knees, giving just enough room for Phil to nudge the head of his cock against Clint’s hole without penetrating. Clint tensed upon feeling the first pressure, so Phil stilled and waited patiently for Clint to relax. He teased Clint’s opening lightly and stroked his own cock to keep it interested, but waited for Clint to relax before he would press inside.

                Clint’s patience ran out first, and he snapped, “What the hell’s taking so long?”

                Phil chuckled, and began to press more forcefully.

                “Relax for me,” Phil coaxed as his cock began to slip inside. Clint groaned and closed his eyes, so Phil reached between them and began stroking Clint’s cock in long, languid strokes. Clint took a shuddering breath and let himself relax. Phil’s cock slipped inside and Clint was shocked at how easily his body accepted it. Clint’s body resisted only mildly when Phil’s partially inflated knot hit Clint’s entrance, but accepted it when Phil bucked his hips softly. Once the knot was swallowed, Clint’s body pulled Phil’s cock inside, holding it deeply as Clint’s entrance twitched and tried to adjust to the invasion.

Clint was shocked that it felt good – really good. Just as good as when he was in heat, but without the sensation of desperation and drowning that came with heat. Clint moaned and let himself grind down on Phil’s cock, and was pleased to note that the alpha shivered and tightened his grip on Clint’s hip, his other hand still stroking Clint’s cock. Clint smiled and rocked his hips just enough to slide over Phil’s cock but not enough to free his knot. It was the perfect amount of stimulation for the alpha, who cursed and rocked his pelvis against Clint. Clint moaned and began rocking up and down at a steady pace, bringing Phil closer and close to the edge. Phil’s hand gripped Clint’s hip, but he made no move to guide Clint’s motions, afraid of startling the omega. Instead, he focused on stroking Clint’s cock, moving his thumb over the head and trying to bring Clint to completion before Phil hit his own breaking point. It was nearly a race, and by the time Clint came, Phil was growing concerned that he’d lose.

                Clint orgasmed as if on cue, when Phil knew he was only moments away from losing control himself. The omega groaned and slammed himself down on Phil’s cock, and it was more than the agent could take. He felt Clint coming, shoved his knot deep into Clint’s body, and came himself with a shout.

                It was textbook knotting behavior. Spend a majority of time on the foreplay, loosen the omega up prior to sex, make sure the omega orgasms before the knot. As far as textbooks went, the knot should have been blissful for Clint, keeping him in that orgasmic state until the knot deflated.

                But as Phils knot began to swell, something in Clint snapped back to a time where taking knots wasn’t something he’d had a choice in. Phil could feel Clint’s heart rate accelerating and gave a tentative pull at his cock, trying to see if it could still slip out of Clint’s body, but the knot was already too inflated.

                They were tied, and Clint was panicking.

                There wasn’t any way to free Clint. Nothing short of a medical procedure could make Phil’s knot instantly deflate, and Clint could do serious damage to himself if he tried to rip free. Phil could see Clint’s face, could see the omega quickly losing his grip on reality as the memories took him, could feel the omega’s legs tense in preparation to push away from him. Phil called to Clint, tried to make his voice soothing and calm, but there was no response. In another moment, Clint would try to flee, and possibly hurt himself in the process.

                Phil made a very difficult decision very quickly. He rolled them, pinning the omega under him and murmuring soothingly to Clint as he did so. He had little hope that it would help, and was unsurprised when Clint continued to panic.

“Clint, calm down! You’re okay,” Phil tried desperately as he pinned Clint’s hips, trying to keep the omega from pulling and hurting himself. It didn’t help that they were face-to-face, so Phil had to pin Clint bent nearly in half, with Phil’s hands keeping Clint’s thighs wrapped around his waist so they didn’t slip apart. If Clint heard him, he made no response. His struggles grew more desperate. He threw a fist at Phil’s face and dug a foot into Phil’s back, flinging himself about six inches forward. The pull to Phil’s knot felt like being kicked in the groin. Despite this, Phil caught Clint’s fist and twisted his wrist. The omega flinched and turned his upper torso away from the pain until he was half twisted, his other arm pinned beneath him. Clint made a noise of pain and terror, but Phil knew better than to let him go. Phil bit his lip, prepared to wait out their tie with Clint trapped beneath him, and he could only hope that his knot subsided quickly because of their distress. Beneath him, Clint thrashed wildly, panting and trying to get free. When it became apparent that he was trapped, Clint tried one last, desperate move.

He screamed.

                The walls in their floor were fairly thick. They could, generally, hear someone calling from one end of the apartment to the other, but only if that person wanted to be heard. Clint and Phil had never heard anything short of a small explosion from the other floors (which happened more often than one would think), but certainly never conversations or even arguments. If something would happen (like a small explosion) occupants of the Tower had an emergency override code that would allow them to access any floor, but it was very rarely used. The floors of the Tower were designed for optimal safety and privacy.

                They had not been designed with super-soldier hearing in mind.

                From the time Clint screamed to the time Steve kicked down their bedroom door, only about ninety seconds had elapsed. Phil would have been impressed, if he hadn’t been frozen in the face of the enraged alpha that was Captain America. From the look on Steve’s face as he took in the scene in front of him, with Phil twisting Clint’s arm and pinning the omega beneath him, Phil was fairly certain he was about to get ripped to pieces.

                The worst part, the very worst part as far as Phil was concerned, was that he was still knotted with Clint, and even just taking the blows from Captain America could have enough force to pull Phil’s knot, which could injure Clint. There was nothing Phil could do to stop Cap, it was obvious that the alpha was beyond verbal reasoning. The best solution Phil could come up with was to lay himself over Clint and hold on, pinning the omegas arms while trying to minimize the damage to Clint.

                But the change in the atmosphere had managed to snap Clint back to the present, and the feel of Phil curling around him brought him back to himself. And Clint wasn’t going to lay down and be protected. As soon as Phil wrapped around him, Clint rolled, putting the alpha underneath him and staring Steve down with a glare that promised violence if the alpha dared to take a step further.

                Steve… hesitated. He hesitated long enough to take in the scene in front of him, and managed to come back to his senses. His alpha instincts settled as soon as the omega was out of immediate danger, and it let his mind start to reengage. Unfortunately, he was still just as confused as the moment he’d heard Clint scream.

                “Guys… What’s going on?” he managed to ask. Clint was still giving him a violent stare, but Phil seemed to realize that Steve had resumed cognitive function.

                “We were knotting,” Phil explained, hoping that would be enough. It wasn’t.

                “I can see that,” Steve admitted, feeling a blush rise to his face. “But why did Clint scream? Are you… Is he okay?”

                “Steve… Please believe me, everything was consensual. Clint… had second thoughts, but my knot was already secure. There was nothing… I couldn’t get it out of him in time.”

                “I don’t understand,” Steve replied, the confused frown still on his face. What Phil was saying, it didn’t ring completely truthful.

                “I panicked,” Clint admitted brokenly, and then finally gave up glaring at Steve to collapse against Phil’s chest. “We were knotting and it was great… and then…”

                “Something triggered him,” Phil defended, his arms coming up to wrap around his omega. “He tried to pull off, but you know how dangerous it is for omegas to pull off a knot.”

                In Steve’s day, a male omega pulling off of a knot was almost guaranteed to die. He’d heard that the chances of survival were a lot better now, with modern medicine, but there was still a risk of death. Getting injured there, in heat or out of it, was a serious problem.

                “Are you alright? How hard did you pull?” Phil asked, now whispering in quiet tones to Clint.

                “I’m fine,” Clint growled, but Phil knew him well enough to know that it was embarrassment prompting that response. Besides, Clint had a high pain tolerance, and there was a good chance he wouldn’t notice a tear until they untied and Phil could check for himself. If it was a serious tear, it could be detrimental to wait that long. Phil hesitated, hating the entire situation, but in the end his concern for Clint trumped his embarrassment.

                “Steve?” Phil called, resisting the urge to close his eyes. None of them were going to be happy about this. “Can you check him for me?”

                Steve, to his credit, just blinked before nodding. Clint, on the other hand, hissed at Phil and pushed his shoulders away from the alpha.

                “I said I’m fine!” he snarled.

                “I know, but if you’re not, I’d never forgive myself,” Phil said. “Please, for me, let him check?”

                Clint hesitated and looked miserable, and Phil knew what allowing this was costing the proud omega, then nodded once and hid his face in Phil’s shoulder. Phil nodded to Steve, giving the other alpha a grateful look. Steve approached slowly, knowing that it was dangerous for an alpha to approach another alpha who was mating. Phil couldn’t help the growl that found its way out of his throat as he saw Steve coming closer. Steve didn’t respond other than to pause and wait for the aggression to pass. Phil swallowed it, his arms pulling Clint more tightly against him as he let Steve approach. Clint whined when Steve knelt behind him, but lifted up to Steve’s probing fingers. Phil closed his eyes as he felt the other alpha’s fingers brush his testicles, but held himself still with the force of his will. Steve was thorough but quick, and soon pulled back and retreated to the other side of the room. Phil gave a sigh of relief.

                “There’s no tearing, but it doesn’t look like your knot is deflating yet. Will you be okay now?” Steve asked Clint, who gave a gruff nod.

                “We’re fine now,” Phil said softly. “You can go.” It was a dismissal and Phil didn’t try very hard to hide it. Steve didn’t take offense. He just nodded and beat a hasty, embarrassed retreat.  

                Phil and Clint laid there for several minutes quietly. Phil tried to find something to say, but words to form an apology wouldn’t come to him. Finally, it was Clint that broke the silence.

                “So, he said I’m fine?” Clint asked.

                “Yes,” Phil said, and added, “thankfully” in his head.

                “It still… Why does it hurt like this?” Clint wondered airily. Phil could tell that Clint was still a bit out of it.

                “You pulled pretty hard, love. You need to relax, or it’s not going to feel better.”

                “I’m trying!” Clint growled, and managed to tense up even more.

                Phil rubbed Clint’s shoulders and curled around him. His hands dipped over Clint’s chest and found their way down to the omega’s cock, then stroked languidly.

                “What are you doing?” Clint wondered. Phil smiled.

                “Just relax,” Phil cooed, and stroked down Clint’s length. Clint gasped and gave a tiny buck of his hips. Phil began to rub Clint’s cock in earnest, enjoying Clint’s little mewls and gasps. When Clint finally orgasmed, shooting hot semen onto the sheets in front of them, Phil’s knot was starting to deflate, and not even the soft ripples of Clint’s orgasm could convince it back to fullness. When Clint’s orgasm finished and his body fell limp and relaxed, Phil managed to finally slip his cock from the omega’s body, followed by a rush of wet come. Phil took a quick moment to check Clint’s opening, relieved but unsurprised to find it undamaged, then curled around his sleepy omega. He fell asleep wondering if he could count their first attempt at knotting as a success or a failure.

                A hand on Clint’s wrist brought him back to the present, and he wondered at himself for making it through sixteen months of their relationship while Phil stood there and pondered him, waiting for an answer. They had, of course, tried knotting again. They’d informed other members of the Tower just in case another accident occurred. There had been successes and failures, but Clint didn’t regret any of it. And it made his choice fairly obvious, when he thought about it.

                “You. You know I want you,” Clint told him, and couldn’t help but notice the relieved smile Phil gave him.

                “You sure?” Phil forced himself to ask, and Clint didn’t even dignify that with a response, just grabbed him and pulled him down to the bed, locking their lips together. The hot, tight feeling was back in Clint’s body, making him want to crawl out of his skin. Phil ran his hands under Clint’s shirt, soothing him in a way that surprised Clint. Clint moaned and knew that his heat was ramping up quickly. He had a sudden, panicky sense of what it had been like last time – all flashes and confusion, like the world was slipping through his fingers and he couldn’t get them to grasp it – and took a shuddering breath.

                Phil sensed the tension in Clint’s muscles possibly before he did, and leaned in to kiss the omega. It didn’t completely relax him, but it did distract him from his thoughts. Phil kissed his way down Clint’s throat, settling to lap at the hollow of his collarbone. Clint moaned again, throwing his head back and closing his eyes. It was a vulnerable position, to have his throat exposed like that, and it warmed Phil that Clint did it right away, well before the heat had taken those choices from him. It made him feel a bit better about not pushing the issue with Steve and Tony a bit more. Phil knew that it would be easy for the two alphas to bring Clint through this heat. A part of him felt guilty about wanting this part of Clint to himself, about wanting to let Clint’s omega smell bring out his alpha. Or maybe he was just being territorial.

                Clint moaned and rolled his hips against Phil, and Phil shivered, feeling the blood rush straight to his cock. Clint already smelled delightfully of pheromones, and although Phil could tell he was still a bit away from his full heat, he also could smell that the omega was rapidly approaching it. Phil snagged Clint’s shirt and pulled it over his head, followed quickly by his own.

                There was no shyness to them, and Clint didn’t even pause while Phil was crawling out of his shirt, he just shoved his pants off and started in on Phil’s buckle. Phil chuckled at Clint’s enthusiasm, but forced the omega to slow down when they hit the bed. Clint’s movements had a nervous twitch to them, and Phil knew it could easily turn into hysteria. So instead of crawling on top of Clint immediately, Phil crawled up an laid down beside him, their bodies flush from shoulder to hip but without Phil looming over Clint and making him feel trapped.

                “Thanks,” Clint muttered, and took Phil’s cock in his hand, rubbing it along his own hot length. Phil wasn’t surprised that Clint saw what he was doing; they’d been together enough for Clint to get used to how Phil liked to top (Phil liked to think of it as being an extremely sensitive and thorough lover, Clint thought of it as being tortuously slow and detailed, but was not-so-secretly pleased by Phil’s technique). Phil wasn’t hesitant about climbing on top, but he knew what a bad idea it could be to trap Clint. Outside of heat, Phil often let Clint on the top even if he was a receiving partner, but they’d already discussed that instincts would probably make that an impossibility.

                “You don’t have to thank me for being a good alpha,” Phil countered, but it was an argument they’d had a thousand times. Clint nodded, and Phil let it go. It was something they were working on, something that would take a long time. And Phil had all the time in the world where Clint was concerned.

                After a few strokes, Phil pulled Clint’s hand away and began grinding against the omega’s pelvis. He didn’t overlook the way the omega turned his hips to get Phil’s cock closer to his ass. It was tempting, but Phil was mature enough to wait, to let Clint settle, to let his hormones take over. But Phil’s knot was already half-swollen, and every brush of Clint’s cock against it was nearly torture.

                “Is it always so hot?” Clint asked, and Phil could smell his pheromones ramping up. Phil had hoped for a longer acceleration period, just to get Clint used to the idea and adjusted, but Bruce had warned him that it might come hard and fast.

                “That’s why they call it heat,” Phil joked, but it fell flat. Still, it kept him from saying, “You know it is,” which would have invariably reminded Clint of his previous heat and which was the worst thing Phil could think of.

                “Need you baby,” Clint begged, and rolled onto his belly, pushing himself up on his knees to present himself.

                It was the most erotic thing Phil had ever seen. His archer – his strong, beautiful, damaged, deadly assassin – on his knees and begging for Phil’s cock. His back was straight and strong and dotted with scars that mapped out an entire life of trials and tribulations. His face was resting on his arms, and Phil just wanted to lick the muscles all along them. There was slick sliding down the backs of Clint’s thighs, and his balls hung low between his legs, his cock long and firm and nestled in the soft hairs between them.

                It was all Phil could do not to jump on him. Everything in him screamed to mount and to mate, to make this man his own and convince him to stay forever. But Phil had been through this before. He could see the tension in Clint’s arms, the way the shook almost imperceptibly. He could see the way that Clint’s back was almost too straight, and how Clint seemed to be holding his thighs open with the force of his will. And Phil knew that if he mounted Clint now, he would damage the omega’s psyche. Perhaps irreparably.

                So instead, he leaned forward and kissed Clint’s shoulder, then whispered, “Turn over for me,” in his ear. Clint just blinked in confusion.

                “I thought… You don’t want me like this?”

                “I want you to be comfortable,” Phil hedged, “and I think you’d do better on your back. Please?” Phil asked, and he knew it was below the belt because Clint could never refuse him when he said please.

                “Okay,” Clint replied, and Phil didn’t miss the quiet relief hiding in that statement. Clint rolled to his back and the tension immediately left his body as he pulled Phil’s body onto his own and wrapped his legs around Phil’s hips.

                “That’s it,” Phil encouraged as Clint ground his hips against Phil’s pelvis.

                “Can you just fuck me now?” Clint growled, and Phil thought it was supposed to come across bossy and demanding, but it just sounded desperate. Instead of answering, Phil tipped Clint’s hips and teased the tip of his cock against Clint’s hole. This time Clint really did growl, and used his legs to try to force Phil inside, but Phil held the omega still. He teased Clint mercilessly, dragging his tip in a circle around Clint’s pucker until Clint cursed at him, then pressed his cock against the hole so gently that it took minutes to slip fully inside.

                Once seated, Phil stilled, both to give Clint a moment to adjust and to give himself a second to get it together. Clint’s pheromones were affecting him more than he’d anticipated, and he didn’t want to finish too quickly. Beyond the fact that it would be embarrassing, it was better to draw out the sex during heat, to get as many alpha hormones as possible into the omega.

                “Phil,” Clint whined, rolling his hips in a desperate attempt to get friction. “Don’t tease me,” he begged, and his hand reached between them to fist his own cock.

                “Not teasing,” Phil replied, and tried to keep his voice from growling, but his self-control was really being tested. He gave a couple shallow thrusts, and the noise Clint gave in reaction could only be called a mewl. Clint would have been mortified if he’d heard himself, but his focus was almost completely on getting fucked.

                Phil picked up his pace then, knowing that neither he nor Clint was going to last long. He set a steady pace with his cock, and Clint thrust enthusiastically against him, still jerking himself off even as Phil rutted into him. Clint moaned loudly, and it made Phil thrust faster. Clint was usually reluctant to make noise during sex, limiting himself to growls and gasps, and biting his lips against everything else. Seeing him be so wanton and unrepressed was more of a turn-on than Phil had anticipated.

                “Gonna come!” Clint warned him, and Phil had known for several minutes that Clint was getting close. Phil hiked Clint’s legs up higher and began to give Clint bruising, punishing thrusts that popped his half-inflated knot viciously in and out of Clint’s body. Clint gave a shout and splattered Phil’s chest with semen, and only a moment later Phil was burying his knot deep in the omega’s body. The pleasure from his orgasm was so intense that for several minutes his sight blacked out, and it was all he could do to cling to Clint and ride it out. Phil could feel his knot swelling, but Clint was nearly catatonic with pleasure. Phil doubted that Clint would recover before his knot deflated, and settled himself over his omega, kissing Clint’s face and neck as he waited for his own pleasure to subside.

                When they were done, half an hour later when Phil’s knot finally subsided, Clint kissed him sweetly and then yawned. Phil patted himself on the back for exhausting the omega.

                “Hm, that was way nicer than heat sex,” Clint mumbled as he turned over and curled up. “Can you wake me if you smell my hormones starting to ramp up? I don’t want to wake up in the middle of the first wave.”

                “What?” Phil asked, his voice soft and bewildered.

                “Just wanna catch a couple minutes of sleep before we get to it. Thanks for taking the edge off.”

                “Clint… I’m not sure what you think is happening here… and in deference to your hormones I’m going to try not to be offended… but that was your first wave.”

                Now it was Clint’s turn to be confused.

                “No, that was… that was great. I was lucid and you… you asked me what I wanted and…”

                “Okay,” Phil said, and hoped he managed to keep his relief out of his voice, “It’s okay. I know you haven’t had normal heats before now, I should have realized how… new you would be to all this. That was the first wave. There will be more waves, probably four or five a day, for the next week or so. If we do everything right, and we make sure to keep attuned to your needs and keep our couplings at a regular pace, you should never get to the point that you’re desperate. There’s no reason for you to lose your lucidity. I’d be lying if I said I hope you won’t beg, but there shouldn’t be a point where you’re so out of control that you have to. Understand?”

                Clint nodded, then said hesitantly, “I didn’t really believe you, when you said what a normal heat was like. Sorry I… offended your manly pride,” Clint teased, but Phil just kissed his shoulder.

                “Nap, then we’ll go down for dinner with Steve and Tony, and then come back up before your second round. We should have a good couple hours between these two, the first and second are normally pretty far apart.”

                “Will you be okay with that?” Clint asked, but laid down obediently. “I mean, having me around Steve and Tony?”

                “It shouldn’t be a problem if you’re not in the middle of a wave. You’ll smell good, and you might make everybody a little horny, but it’s nothing we can’t control. And I wasn’t lying when I said it was important for omegas to be around family during heat. Right now, you’re emotionally vulnerable. It makes it easier for you to accept a family if you take a new alpha, but it also make you prone to depression if you’re isolated. Most families converge around their omegas during the heat week. It takes a little finesse to figure out when to descend on the omega and when to become scarce, but it’s important for strong family units.”

                “Is that what we are?” Clint wondered, and Phil could just detect the carefully hidden wistfulness beneath it.

                “It’s what I’d like us to be. You and me, Steve, Tony, Natasha, and Thor. It’s a weird family, but I don’t think that’s a bad thing. Every family has its quirks.”

                “No,” Clint protested, and settled down to sleep. “I like it.”

                Phil smiled softly and said, “I hoped you would.”

                Heat week for Clint turned out to be basically a two-week vacation filled with sex. There was a lot of sex, boisterous, noisy, raunchy sex. But the sex only lasted for an hour or so, and afterwards Clint felt satisfied and energized. (Although Clint’s body did begin to have aches and pains after the first few days, but Phil was happy to give him rub-downs and long, hot baths). When not having sex, Clint was constantly surrounded by people looking to give him attention and affection. Steve and Tony made a special effort to bring him food and games, and to entertain him when Phil needed to rest. Thor also enjoyed the extra bonding time, and even Bruce made a special effort to socialize with the group (although he still wore his scent-cancelling mask when placed in close quarters with Clint). It was sort of nice, at first, but eventually it started to make Clint nervous. All he could think, every time they did it, was, “What do they want from me?” If it weren’t for Phil dragging him out, Clint probably would have hidden in their bedroom for the duration of the heat.

                Only Natasha shared in his quiet bafflement about the situation. She, too, was confused both by how everyone else was acting, but also by how easily Clint’s heat was slipping by. If nothing else, Clint hoped his experience could make Natasha less nervous about her own upcoming heat, but for the time being they were both just… confused. Eventually, Phil took them both aside to explain.

                “I keep trying to remember how little you two know about actual heats,” he began, and had that look on his face like he wanted to punch every single alpha in either of their pasts. “So, let me explain something most omegas know well before now. Heat, for most family units, is a time to bond, second only to the bearing and birth of a child. The family unit – alphas, betas, and other omegas – use heat as a time to show the omega how precious they are, and how well the family can provide for that omega. So, I know that you don’t really understand this, but you need to just let everyone pamper you. It’s for you in the way that they’re trying to be nice to you, but it’s for them in that it makes the family unit stronger. Do you understand?”

                Phil could tell that they didn’t, not really, but he knew that the idea had been planted. And maybe that was all he could ask for at the moment.

                A normal heat lasted roughly seven days, up to nine at the longest. On day ten, Phil began to worry. Clint was starting to look wan and pale. He was tiring more easily and staying asleep longer. He was still eating, but Phil watched him losing weight with a quiet horror and pushed calories at the omega.

This heat was a transition point, a cusp. Once Clint got past it, his following heats should be normal, but there could still be some residual problems from his previous heat. Phil was really hoping that they could make a clean break from Clint’s past issues, and that Phil could bring him through this heat without issue. But was Clint deteriorated, Phil’s hopes were dwindling, and it seemed more and more likely that he would need to call for reinforcements, at least for this last time.

                By the next day, Clint was quickly losing lucidity. He began to gaze at nothing for long periods of time, would forget what he was saying in the middle of a sentence, and repeat himself multiple times. Phil noted his progress with anguish. When Clint no longer had the strength to leave the bedroom, Phil resigned himself to the inevitable.

                When Clint woke up, he was covered in a light sheen of sweat, but he could smell the clean sheets beneath him. Phil was amazing with that, always changing the sheets before they got too saturated with his scent, but never with sheets so overpoweringly scented that they nauseated him. He reached out for the ever-present water bottle beside the bed, and was unsurprised to find it just below room temperature. Tony had installed a refrigeration unit under the bed that kept the drinks just cool enough, and Phil was constantly rotating them. When Clint had slaked his thirst, he fell back to the bed, exhausted by the small movement. He could feel another wave building, but knew it was still a few hours away. He dozed off, hoping that Phil would be back before the next wave hit.

                He woke again to the hands of an alpha on him, tenderly helping him sit up. He moaned and reached for the other, breathing in his scent, his cock already hardening in anticipation. But the scent… wasn’t right. Clint opened his eyes to meet with Steve’s concerned blue ones, and not Phil’s familiar brown ones.

                Panic set in immediately. Clint had no idea how long he’d been out, or if something had happened while he was asleep. He pushed away from Steve, struggled to sit on his own, and ended up slumping against Steve for support. Steve was naked, Clint noticed, and Clint’s body was more than eager for the replacement, but terror sang through his veins and there was nothing left for lust.

                “Where’s Phil?” Clint growled, and tried to ignore the rough, needy grate of his own voice. “What’s happened? Where is he?”

                “It’s okay, you’re fine…” Steve soothed, but it wasn’t what Clint needed to hear.

                “Where the fuck is my alpha?” he yelled, and his voice sounded partially hysterical to his own ears. He was still trying to wrestle out of Steve’s grip when the door banged open.

                “I’m here!” came Phil’s growl from the doorway, “Clint, calm down! I’m here!”

                And then Phil was gathering him in his arms and the scent was right, and Clint was falling against him with no strength left to struggle. Clint buried his face in Phil’s shirt and bit down on a sob. Phil just held him and rubbed his back and murmured soothing sounds.

                “What happened?” Clint asked, and couldn’t help the accusatory tone. “Where were you?”

                “Clint, love, don’t you remember?” Phil asked, his brow furrowed in confusion. “We talked about this. Your heat isn’t breaking, love. I asked if you would let Steve come and break it for you, and you said yes. Do you remember?”

                It sounded familiar. Clint could remember snippets of an earlier conversation, something being mentioned about Steve, and making appropriate response noises. He wasn’t sure it had anything to do with this… but he had the sinking suspicion that it might.

                “I don’t… but… I want you…”

                And here, Phil looked practically gutted with guilt. He took a deep breath in through his nose, still holding Clint’s hands. He kissed one of Clint’s knuckles.

                “Clint… I’m so sorry… I can’t give you what you need.”

                Clint looked horrified and tried to stutter out an apology. Phil silenced it with a finger.

                “Stop. Stop right now. This is not… This is not about you not being good enough, or not being strong enough, or not loving me enough. This is a biological function, and we are doing it because I want you well, and for no other reason. You have nothing to be sorry for. It’s not your fault.”

                It took a moment for Clint to process that, and he knew his mind was getting foggy again. When he did manage to reply, he said, “Then you can’t be sorry either.”

                “Alright,” Phil said with a sad smile, and kissed Clint’s lips slowly, savoring the omega’s taste. When they parted, he backed away, letting Steve slide in to take his place.

                “Hey,” Steve said, and rubbed his hands along the omega’s arms in a way that made Clint shiver and his cock bob. But Clint’s eyes were glued to Phil, who was retreating out of the room.

                “Stay?” Clint asked, and it came out as a whimper as his hand reached for Phil. “Please?”

                Phil turned back and he looked stricken again, his eyes darting between Clint and Steve. He swallowed thickly and said, “I don’t know if that’s a good idea.”

                “We might attack each other,” Steve explained patiently, and Clint glanced at him to see that the alpha looked nearly as pained as Phil. “It’s a territory thing.”

                “But you’ve been around all week,” Clint argued.

                “Not…” Phil put in, “not while we were mating. I’m not sure I could let another alpha near you for sex. I’m not sure Steve will let me be near while he’s... mating.”

                “Steve shares with an alpha all the time,” Tony argued from the doorway. “Hey birdbrain,” Tony acknowledged, his gaze going straight to Clint’s hard and dipping cock. “You having fun without me?”

                “Trying to,” Clint responded, then gasped and moaned as another wave of heat ripped through him, making his insides clench and his cock spurt another drop of fluid.

                “Anyway, as I was saying,” Tony continued, “Steve shares with an alpha all the time, and has no problems with it. And, honestly Phil, it wouldn’t really matter if you did have a problem with Cap, there’s not a whole lot you can do about it. Physically, he’d wipe the floor with you. So, how about we just give the omega in heat whatever he wants and get this over with?”

                They hesitated for a moment, with Steve and Phil both eyeing each other warily. Finally, Steve nodded.

                “He’s right. I don’t feel the need to defend territory from you. I’m fine with it, if you want to stay.”

                “I… would like that,” Phil admitted, and settled at the side of the bed and took Clint’s hand.

                “Great!” Tony chirped, entering the room as well. “If Phil gets to come in, then so do I!”

                “Tony,” Steve chided, but Clint cut in.

                “It’s fine,” Clint said, rubbing his body against Steve’s as Phil relaxed beside them. “He can come too. I don’t mind.”

                “Three alphas and an omega,” Tony teased as he settled at the foot of the bed. “What do they call this?”

                “An orgy,” Phil supplied.

                “A good fucking time!” Tony argued.

                “A good time fucking?” Clint teased back. Phil and Steve rolled their eyes. Steve pulled Clint back against him and rocked his erection against the omega’s ass. Clint was putting out buckets of pheromones, all the alphas were hard and horny. Phil let Steve touch his omega, let him kiss Clint’s neck and run his hands down his chest. It wasn’t that Phil wanted to get between Steve and Clint, to keep them apart, but he just wished that it was under different circumstances. He wished he’d been enough for Clint.

                Clint was too far gone to notice the change in Phil, but Steve could see the expression in Phil’s eyes, knows that the alpha is disappointed in himself. It made Steve sad as well. It made Tony pissed off.

                “For fuck’s sake, this is an orgy, not a funeral,” he growled at them. “Quit looking so dour.”

                Phil tried, but he couldn’t quite get the sadness off of his face.

                “Fuck it,” Tony snapped, then grabbed Phil’s face and kissed him.

                Steve gasped. Clint grinned. Phil growled and shoved him back.

                “Hey, at least it got that expression off your face!”

                “I’m pissed off and I’m horny, Stark! Do not tease me!”

                “Who said I was teasing?” Tony countered, and it made everyone pause. Tony flicked his eyes to Steve, who gave a quiet, serious nod of permission. Then Tony flicked his eyes to Clint, who grinned and shrugged.

                “Hey, I’m getting fucked. You two might as well join in.”

                Then his eyes flicked to Phil, who looked completely exasperated.

                “Was this all just a ploy to get laid?” Phil growled. Tony grinned and chuckled.

                “Maybe.”

                “Fine,” Phil sighed, but Clint could tell that he was excited. “Strip,” he demanded.

                “Jeeze, at least buy me dinner first.”

                “Strip, or I’ll rip you out of those fucking clothes,” Phil threatened.

                “Kinky,” Tony said, but shimmied out of his clothes anyway. His cock was already hard and bobbing between his legs, looking just as excited as he was. Phil took his clothes off more slowly, taking time to fold them and put them aside. His cock was hard too, but not as desperate as Tony’s. Phil had been mating all week, so while the omega pheromones were getting him interested, it would take a bit more stimulation to make him lose control.

Phil grabbed lubricant out of the bedside table and settled himself at the foot of the bed, sitting with his feet on the floor. Tony was practically bouncing on his feet, and leaned over to give Clint an impatient kiss while Phil was getting ready. The scent of omega pheromones was stronger around Clint, and Tony moaned and licked the omega’s shoulder to get a better taste. Phil sighed in exasperation as he glanced at them.

“Do you even know which one of us you want to fuck, Stark?”

“All of you,” he replied cheekily, “but you’ll suffice.”

Tony pulled away from Clint and laid himself across Phil’s lap, pushing his ass up so that Phil could prepare him. He was surprised when Phil stroked a hand down his back and rear, and the feeling made shiver.

                “You know, Tony,” Phil said, and it was so soft and satisfied that even Clint and Steve had to look over. “I’ve waited so long to get you here.”

                “Oh yeah?” Tony asked, and it was obvious that he was confused and a little bit uncomfortable. “What, you got some kind of fetish for my ass?”

                “Something like that,” Phil replied, and then brought his hand down as hard as he could on the tender flesh of Tony’s buttocks. Tony cursed and lunged forward, but didn’t leave the bed to avoid the stinging blow, or the ones that followed. Phil was surprised that Tony didn’t leap away from him like a wet cat, but stayed tense but still for nearly a half dozen blows. Steve chuckled, then laughed harder at Phil’s confused expression.

                “You won’t get him to move now,” Steve promised. “Tony likes it rough.

                “Finish it,” Tony begged, and his voice sounded wrecked. Phil could feel how hard the other alpha was, could feel a warm smear of semen on his thigh where Tony’s cock was leaking.

                “Five more,” Phil told him, and it was less than he thought Tony could take, but he wasn’t sure he could wait any longer than that. He brought his hand down again on the alpha’s already heated as, making Tony moan and wiggle in his lap.

                “I’ll add another five if you don’t lay still,” Phil threatened. Tony went still, and Phil felt another drop of semen hit his leg. Phil gave him the next three smacks quickly, alternating cheeks, and stopped only when he heard Clint moan behind them, and turned to see his omega fisting his own cock and grinding back against Steve, who had still not penetrated him. Steve gave Phil a nod and Phil turned back to Tony.

                The final blow landed low on Tony’s ass, right where his testicles were peeking out. It made Tony give an aborted scream of pain, but he stayed on Phil’s lap and fisted his hands in the bedspread. He sobbed when Phil laid his hand on the heated flesh, but remained perfectly still for the other alpha.

                “Good,” Phil praised, and stroked his hand down Tony’s back, then reached for the lube. “You did so good. Do you want a reward?” Phil asked, and Tony sobbed but nodded. Phil lubed his fingers, pressing one digit easily into the Tony’s hole. Tony hissed and bucked his hips, so Phil inserted a second finger only a few seconds later. Tony moaned and rutted back against them, trying to fuck himself on the digits.

                “He won’t need much,” Steve promised as Phil was pressing in a third finger. “He fucked me this morning, but I fingered him first, so he should already be pretty loose for you.”

                “You want me to scream like a bitch for him?” Tony asked, his eyes glazed, his cock leaking.

                “He’ll make you scream,” Steve promised. “Get on your knees. I want you and Clint to scream together.”

                Tony went to his knees eagerly, shimmying off of Phil’s lap before the alpha had even pulled his fingers out. Clint took a little more prodding, mainly because he was too far gone to understand the instructions. Steve guided him over to his stomach, and then shifted him until he was on his knees, lined up beside Tony. It suddenly made sense to Phil, why Steve had been waiting while he and Tony had played. This had been Steve’s plan from the beginning, to fuck Clint and Tony at the same time.

Then Phil and Steve knelt behind them, lining up and pushing inside in unison. Clint screamed, already so far gone in his heat that he was barely lucid. Tony hissed when Phil made it the whole way inside, with Phil’s pelvis pressing against Tony’s abused ass. Both men thrust back greedily, aching and ready to be fucked. Phil grabbed Tony’s hips and made him still.

                “Watch them,” he commanded, and Tony turned his head to watch Clint get pounded by Steve, to watch Steve’s knot disappear into Clint’s hole. It made the omega howl with pleasure and rut back against the alpha. Clint was so close, so ready, and it was barely minutes before he was screaming and biting his own arms, his fingernails scratching at the sheets. When he finally came, it was so intense that he couldn’t even scream at first, all the air caught in his throat as he cock spurted rivulets of hot, thick cum onto the bed beneath him without ever having been touched.

                When Steve felt the shudders of Clint’s orgasm, he sank his knot into the omega, knocking the omega over with the force of his thrust. Clint lay on the bed, boneless, and let Steve fuck him into the mattress. Steve towered over him, fucking his cock down into Clint’s body until the orgasm took him as well, and he tied with the omega and collapsed on top of him.

                “Do you want that?” Phil asked, and Tony was nearly wrecked just watching it.

                “Yes.”

                “Beg for it,” Phil demanded, his hand fisting in Tony’s hair and pulling.

                “Please fuck me. Please, please fuck me like that.”

                Phil obliged, pounding into the other alpha with fast, punishing thrusts. Tony was just as desperate, pushing back against every thrust, falling until his shoulders were on the mattress so he could fist his own cock. It took only a few, quick strokes before he was orgasming and screaming into the mattress. Phil growled and shoved hard into Tony, burying his knot in the alpha and letting Tony’s body milk the orgasm from him. Phil groaned, thrusting against Tony’s ass without dislodging his knot.

                Steve came around first, although his knot was still firmly lodged in Clint. He smiled as he saw Phil curled around Tony, who had turned to face Clint in his sleep. Clint was breathing deeply, his scent abating, and obviously recovering from his heat.

                Phil came around next, as his knot dislodged from Tony with a quiet pop. He pulled back and Tony groaned softly, shifting closer to Clint.

                “You’ve got a good man there, Steve,” Phil complimented. “But I’m not sure I could handle him for more than a day.”

                “He’s definitely a handful,” Steve admitted with fondness.

                Clint was stirring then, and Steve’s knot finally released with a pop and a gush of semen. Steve grabbed a towel from beside the bed and cleaned them up, handing it across to Phil so that he could o the same for himself and Tony. Clint roused at the movement, although Tony stayed soundly asleep. Blinking slowly awake, Clint reached out his hand for Phil. Phil smiled softly and gently shifted off of the bed. Steve did the same on the other side and they traded places, holding their own lovers protectively against them as they bracketed them together in the middle of the bed. Clint sighed softly as Phil spooned him, and Tony gave a sleep huff and settled against Steve.

                “Do you… Is that something you’ve always wanted to do?” Clint asked when Phil had settled.

                “Not really,” Phil admitted. “I liked it, and maybe we could do it sometime, but it was more for Tony than me. I think he was feeling a bit left out.”

                “He always acts like a brat when he wants attention,” Steve assured them, with Tony snoring gently on his chest. “He’s been stressed about the company lately, and he’s been worried about you two. I think this was good for him.”

                “It was sure sexy as hell,” Clint put in, and then yawned and curled closer to Phil, who stroked his hair. “Next time, I get to watch Steve fuck you,” he mumbled, and it made Phil blush to the roots of his hair and cast a sidelong glance at Steve. Steve just grinned and said, “I think Tony’s been wearing off on you.”

                At the sound of his name, Tony roused and shifted in Steve’s arms, turning to move closer to Clint. He blinked his eyes sleepily open and smiled at the omega.

                “Best. Fucking. Heat. Ever.”


	22. Prequel With Loki Part 1

“So, what you’re asking is that we let you bring an Asguardian fugitive in heat here for an unknown length of time, and have Steve service him? And he’s an alien and a sorcerer? Is that about right?” Tony asked, and congratulated himself that his voice didn’t sound more than 10% hysterical.

                “I would not ask this if it were not of the most absolute importance. It is only for the sake of my brother that I would ask such a huge favor. I would be forever in your debt for your aid.”

                “Your brother who actually isn’t even the same race as you?” Tony asked.

                “Can you go over this one more time?” Steve intervened before Thor and Tony could start sniping at each other. Despite having worked together on several missions, the two could get into epic snits if left to their own devices. “Your adopted brother, Loki, is not actually an Asguardian but something called a Frost Giant?”

                “Correct.”

                “And he goes through heat every hundred years or so?”

                “As far as I am aware. Loki is a very private person.”

                “So why does he have to come here?” Tony shouted. Steve rolled his eyes, and Thor looked distressed.

                “My brother attempted to steal the throne from my father. He was thwarted and imprisoned. During his confinement, he went into heat and became inconsolable, screaming and tearing at his own skin. Nothing our healers did could calm him.”

                “Did no one offer to… service him?” Steve asked, concern in his voice. “Don’t you have anything set up to help omegas in an unexpected heat?”

                “Nothing like this has ever happened before,” Thor admitted. “As I said, Loki is not naturally born of Asguard. My kind do not suffer from this… illness. It was completely unknown to us, and only scrolls of the biology of the Frost Giant gave any information to what could ail my brother.”

                “Asguard doesn’t have omegas?” Bruce asked. He hadn’t previously joined in the conversation, but he’d been listening avidly. Tony had insisted he be there, both as an expert on omega biology and as a voice of reason if Tony couldn’t convince Steve that this was a stupid idea.

                “Nay, not for as long as our records have been kept.”

                “But Loki has come through heats before? With Asguardians?” Bruce asked, fascinated. Thor only nodded.

                “Did none of his previous lovers reach out to him?” Steve asked. Again, Thor shook his head in negative.

                “Loki was very secretive. He admitted himself that he’s had lovers, but he will give no information on who they are. If they know of Loki’s predicament, then they have not been brave enough to come forward. But with Loki’s magic, there is a possibility that even his lovers do not remember their trysts with my brother.”

                “You said he’s not actually your brother,” Tony pointed again. “So why can’t you service him?”

                At this, Thor looked uncomfortable.

                “I wish it were an option, however, Loki’s heat produces an odor that I find… repugnant.”

                “He smells bad?” Steve questioned, looking alarmed. It was one thing to service an alien, another to service an alien who smelled bad.

                “No others demonstrated revulsion around my brother. Many claim that he smells alluring,” Thor assured.

                “There have been cases of opposite-trait siblings, even unrelated siblings, raised in close quarters developing heat revulsion. The alpha sibling develops a distaste for the scent of the omega sibling’s heat. It dissuades inbreeding,” Bruce assured, but Thor didn’t look convinced.

                “Loki has decided to believe that I would not lower myself to sleeping with a Frost Giant. Nothing I say can turn him from this idea.”

                “Sounds like a peach,” Tony quipped.

                “I’m sure this is a lot for him to take in all at once,” Steve allowed, giving Tony a warning look. They’d only been dating for half a year, but Tony knew better than to challenge that look. It was his “this is already difficult, please don’t make it worse” look.

                “Yes, he has not reacted well to the knowledge of his parenthood. We believe it is part of the reason for his attempted treason. My brother believed that we would not allow him a seat of power in the Asguardian house because of his lineage.”

                “Is he right?” Bruce asked from across the room. “I mean, at this point, he definitely isn’t winning any nominations, but would he have been in line for the throne?”

                “He would,” Thor admitted, “but only behind me, as my younger brother. I admit that, had he asked me, I might have relinquished the power to him. I feel ill-suited for the crown. Apparently, my brother thought the same, and tried to take the title by force.”

                “So what happens if we fix him?” Tony put in, always looking at the end of the equation. “I mean, we’re not going to fix him so that you can chop his head off or something equally medieval, are we?”

                “Nay, my brother was punished with imprisonment, but I believe that if Loki can see reason and repent his actions, then my father will look favorably upon him and repeal the sentence.”

                There was quiet for a moment, with Bruce and Tony trying to think of more questions, and Steve trying to find the nerve to tell his alpha boyfriend that he was definitely going to help the omega. Thor waited patiently, a hopeful gleam in his eyes and unusually still for the unruly alien. Finally, Tony sighed and said, “Fine, I’ll tell somebody to make up the guest room. When can we expect the royal pain to arrive?” He’d known from the start that Steve would never leave a person in need if there was any way to help. It was one of the reasons Tony loved him, but it was also a real pain in the ass sometimes.

                “I will have my warriors sneak him out after nightfall, and Heimdall will have him delivered by moonrise.”

                “Is he going to be in need of medical attention?” Steve asked. “You painted a pretty graphic picture of his injuries.”

                “Nay, this sickness comes in waves. He has had two already, and both gave him two days of lucidity to recover. That is why I felt the need to approach you with such urgency,” Thor admitted. “I would not see my brother endure a third wave alone.”

                He thanked them again, and left in a strike of lightening befitting a demi-god’s departure. Tony huffed and called him a show-off.

                That night found Tony and Steve on the roof of Stark Tower. Thor stood before them, having just arrived with a shackled man beside him who could only be his brother.

                The omega, Loki, was nothing like Steve had expected. Dark haired where his brother was light, willowy where his brother was broad. He didn’t look like much of a threat, not compared to his taller, wider brother, but Steve knew that looks could be deceiving, especially where alien princes were concerned.

                One thing that did look intimidating, though, was his expression. He looked positively furious.

                “This?” he snarled. “This is your solution? Whore me out to mortals?” he screamed, and spat the word “mortals” like it was a vile insult. Steve tried to remember that this man was in heat, that he was hormonal, and that he probably didn’t mean to be so insulting. He tried, but it was hard. Beside him, Tony just laughed.

                “Oh yeah, this is going to be a great time,” he teased, and there was a special pleasure in his eyes that Steve knew was because he hadn’t liked this idea from the start.

                “Prince Loki,” Steve tried diplomatically. “Your brother has found that we are compatible options for your heat. We are willing to offer our services to you.”

                “I don’t need serviced by a mortal!” Loki growled, and this time it was the word “service” that got most of the sneer.

                “Brother,” Thor interjected with exasperation. “Please. These men are friends that have generously offered to help us. I will not have you rebuff their hospitality.”

                Thor’s serious tone reined in some of Loki’s aggression. He visibly bristled, but bit his tongue.

                “Thank you, mortals,” Loki said civilly, but his face still showed badly-contained fury.

                “Alright, boys,” Tony put in, heading for the elevator without waiting for the rest of the group. “I need a drink. Anyone with me?”

                “I’m afraid I must decline,” Thor replied regretfully. “I must make haste. I have a spell that will give the illusion that my brother is with me, and I must lead my father’s guards on a merry chase. Loki?” he asked, turning to his brother. “I must leave you with these men, brother. They assure me you will be safe in their care, and that they will help you with your… illness,” Thor said delicately. Loki growled, but didn’t speak. “I have made them aware that your strength has waned and you are unable to access your magic…”

                “My magic is not gone!” Loki snarled, and if Loki hadn’t been chained the brothers might have come to blows. Instead, Loki rattled his chains angrily. “It’s just… weakened and erratic.”

                “…So they will take all necessary precautions to protect you and see to your comfort.”

                “I do not need mortals!” Loki appealed. “Brother, please, take me with you. We can end this heat immediately! You will not need to lead father’s guards away, I will be able to escape on my own.”

                Thor did not look like he had much experience in denying his little brother anything. He looked positively gutted to have to deny Loki’s earnest pleas. His face, however, never lost its resolve. Instead, he pulled the dark-haired man in for a quick hug. Steve took note that he didn’t breathe while his brother was in his arms, lending credence to his claim that he found his brother’s scent revolting. Then he stepped back and unlocked Loki’s chains. As the shackles clattered to the rooftop, Thor was already flying away from the Tower. Loki stared at the retreating figure until he disappeared in a flash of lightening.

                “You guys coming?” Tony called, holding the doors to the elevator open. “Looks like it’s gonna rain.”

                For a moment, Steve thought that Loki might try to follow his brother somehow. The super-soldier tensed, ready to grab the prince if he tried an ill-advised leap. Instead, after a moment, Loki turned and stormed into the elevator with Tony. Steve followed, and wondered what exactly he’d gotten himself into.

                Loki’s mood did not improve when they entered the Tower. The elevator took them to Steve and Tony’s private floor, where they’d prepared a guest bedroom for Loki. Loki didn’t say anything, but he stormed around his new surroundings sneering at everything and touching nothing. Tony rolled his eyes and made three Rum and Cokes, dank all three, made three more, and offered one to Steve. Steve frowned at Tony’s drinking – it was something they’d been working on – but said nothing and accepted his own drink. He knew it wouldn’t have any effect on his biology, but he felt the need for the familiar sting of alcohol. Tony offered the second drink to Loki, who turned up his nose. Tony shrugged and drank them both.

                “Can you tell me where I’ll be residing?” Loki questioned, and Steve could tell that it was an effort for him to be diplomatic enough to talk to them.

                “Through that door,” Tony gestured. “Thor said you wouldn’t be picky since your last accommodations were a jail cell, and I didn’t go to much trouble since you won’t be staying long.”

                It was a clear message. Tony was laying out his territory, and Steve expected some kind of angry retort from the prince. Instead, they got an icy laugh.

                “Like I’d spend a minute in this hovel longer than I have to,” he told them, then retreated into the guest bedroom and slammed the door. Steve sighed, but Tony just grinned behind his glass.

                “I like him.”

                “Of course you do,” Steve countered. “He’s driving me up a wall already. And don’t tell me that you don’t love being right.”

                “Well, there’s that,” Tony admitted as he collapsed onto the couch. “But, also, he’s so entirely not into you. It’s kind of refreshing, not having to beat the omegas off with a stick.”

                “Don’t get used to it,” Steve cautioned as he flopped down beside Tony and pulled his alpha lover into his arms. He enjoyed Tony’s warmth for a moment, the way his body was slender and hard and constantly moving. Then he warned, “Once the heat hits him, he’ll probably react like any other omega.”

                “He’ll hate it, though,” Tony said with a smile. “I bet he fights it even as he’s begging for it.”

                “It’s possible,” Steve admitted, then added with a gentle smile, “Thank you… for not stopping me from doing this. I know you don’t really like it.”

                Tony shrugged.

                “I fell for the white knight. I can’t blame him if he wants to keep saving the princess- Well, prince, in this case.”

                “Still, thank you. I’m glad you’re here with me for it.”

                “I wouldn’t be anywhere else,” Tony assured him.

                Steve and Tony decided to give Loki some privacy to settle in. They didn’t have any idea how long it would take him to hit another wave of heat or how long the wave would last. Really, they didn’t have any information at all about how a Jotunn’s heat would act, and they could only use human omega information as a loose guide. So the two alphas set JARVIS to alert them if Loki showed any signs of distress, knocked on his door and informed him that they were right next door if he needed anything, and then went to bed.


	23. Loki's Prequel Part 2

                Steve didn’t think that Loki would be easy. Well, not in a literal way, anyway. He was pretty sure that the alien omega was going to do everything he could to resist them. But he was still surprised when they made it to lunch the next day and Loki still hadn’t appeared, hadn’t asked for their help, and JARVIS hadn’t said anything to indicate that the omega might be in distress. From the way Thor had been talking, Steve had expected Loki to be in the middle of a heat cycle, and yet it seemed like he was barely ramping up.

                By mid-day, Steve had knocked on Loki’s door six times to no avail, and finally gave up and went to take a swim. Tony turned down an offer to join, and offered instead to keep an ear out for their wayward charge. He had been reading for less than ten minutes when he felt his eyes drifting to Loki’s door. Something compelled him to stand, and he found himself moving to Loki’s room. The door opened as he approached, as though something was waiting for him on the other side. He crossed the threshold into the dark room and the door slammed shut behind him even as he felt himself pulled to the ground. He glanced at his wrists and found them to be held by black bands that felt more like liquid than any restraints he’d ever faced. He found his ankles held in the same grasp, his body pulled flush against the floor.

                Tony tried not to panic. Steve was gone, yes, but he’d be back in less than an hour. And Jarvis monitored all the rooms, so a simple yell could bring help. But this was the first time that Loki had interacted with them, and Tony didn’t want to move too quickly and scare him off.

                Although, as the long and lanky god softly approached Tony, being frightened seemed like the least likely thing to happen to the other man. He was grinning savagely, his steps confident as he approached and then knelt next to the scientist. Tony could only think, “So much for no magic,” and then Loki was kissing him, his lips meeting Tony’s with a frenzy that only omegas could make.

                “So, not that I’m complaining,” Tony said when Loki finally pulled away, his face flushed and his lips puffy, “but what’s the plan here?”

                “The plan is to get this ridiculous heat over with and return to my former glory,” Loki told him. “I’m going to tie you down. I’m going to fuck myself on your cock until this weakness leaves my body. And then, when my powers return, I’m going to banish your memories and leave this place.”

                “Okay, so, like 90% of that sounds great. But it’s not going to work. Why didn’t you jump Steve?”

                Loki’s eyes drifted tellingly to Tony’s bonds, and Tony gave an experimental pull. There was give. Not a lot, but more than enough for a super-soldier like Steve to break free.

                “You are more than sufficient,” Loki told him and Tony barked a laugh.  

                “Thanks for the rousing vote of confidence, but I’m really not. Seriously. You’re only compatible with Steve.”

                “Don’t lie to me, mortal!” Loki growled, and Tony’s bonds pull almost painfully tight. His cock gave a bob of interest that the Jotunn prince didn’t miss. Loki’s eyes darkened appreciatively. “Is this what you prefer, mortal? To be bound and subjugated?”

                “Hey, fuck you, asshole. I like it a little rough. You like it a little fucking psycho. You don’t see me throwing stones.”

                “Because you are bound and can throw nothing.”

                “If you’d asked for this, I would have agreed to it.”

                “A god does not ask for things! He takes them!”

                “Yeah, and how well has that been working out for you?” Tony snapped, “Or did your entire planet just get sick of your attitude too?”

                It was the wrong thing to say. Tony knew before the last words had left his mouth, but it was too late to pull back. The room rang with silence for a moment, before Loki gave a cry of rage and pulled back his fist. Tony flinched, but the blow never landed. Instead, Loki made a noise of pain and crumpled before the blow could land, clutching his middle.

Tony had been told that denying an omega in heat could cause cramps of pain that felt like being stabbed with hot knives, and Loki had been in heat for weeks now. Tony felt a stab of pity for the proud god, a feeling that he highly doubted Loki would appreciate. Tony’s bonds dissipated, and Tony wanted to ask more about Asguardian magic – a topic he found fascinating – but he held his tongue. He also withheld the urge to reach out to Loki. While most omegas liked to be touched and petted during their heats, Tony couldn’t imagine Loki would appreciate it, so he let the prince have his dignity and suffer alone.

                When the cramp abated, leaving Loki flushed and panting and curled on his side, Tony took a moment to look him over. Without all the pomp and grandeur, Loki looked a lot younger and more wane, to the point that Tony wondered if the god had been using some magic to change his appearance when he arrived. His skin was pale and sallow, with bruising under his eyes and a pinched, pained quality to his face. Where he had seemed lithe when he arrived, now his body simply looked skinny and overwrought, like the stress of being in heat for months on end had wasted his form to nearly a shell. And his eyes, which had sparked with intelligence and life on his arrival, now held an edge of desperation and madness. It made Tony wonder if this heat was only a symptom, and perhaps Loki’s problems went much further than a few months back.

                “If you intend to have me,” Loki said, his voice painful and slow. “I cannot stop you, but I promise you that my revenge will be worse than your human mind can comprehend.”

                And that’s all it really was, Tony realized. Loki was nearly helpless and terrified, and all the pushiness and pomp were just ways for him to get control. And damn, but Tony could get behind a guy who used his mouth to hide his pain and fear.

                “You know, this isn’t even supposed to be my job,” Tony grumbled. “Steve agreed to help you, I don’t know how he ended up running off and I got left here to deal.”

                “Are you going to prattle the whole time?” Loki asked, but it lacked his earlier venom.

                “I’m just saying, it’s not even like I can do anything to help you. I’m an alpha, yeah, but we’re not compatible, so we’re both just stuck waiting for him to get back here.”

                “Don’t lie to me, mortal,” Loki hissed, “I can sense your arousal. You want to have me right here on the floor.”

                And that was true enough. Loki was an omega in heat, and while he didn’t have an actual scent in the way a flower might, there was definitely something in the air that was making Tony horny.

                “Yeah, you smell fuckable, so what?” Tony snarked back, and it seemed to catch Loki off-guard. “I might be an alpha, but I do have some self-control. It’s not like we just rut into anything that smells like omega pheromones, you know.” And that was a whole can of stereotyping that Tony was not going to open up right now, but he’d had to deal with since he’d presented.

                Loki didn’t seem to have a way to respond to that. They sat in silence until Loki had gathered the strength to get to his knees.

                “Listen, seriously, we’ve got no idea what to do with you,” Tony said softly. Loki said nothing, so Tony continued. “I know what biology says we should do, and I know what your brother wants us to do,” and that was met with a growl, so Tony left that thread alone, “but we’ve got no idea what you want.”

                “What I want,” Loki growled, “is not to be humiliated by this… this farce of biology that my lineage has thrust upon me.”

                “So how do we make that happen?” To this, Loki was silent. “Listen, champ, you’ve got to start playing ball here. We can’t help you if you don’t tell us how.”

                But Loki simply climbed laboriously to his feet and retreated toward the in-suite bathroom.

                “Your lover has returned,” he called over his shoulder, and Tony could see what an effort it was form him to keep his posture straight as he walked away. “I have no interest in mating with either of you.”

                And Tony could hear that it was a lie, but he let it go. If Loki was going to be that stubborn, there was nothing they could do for him.

                It took three more days for Loki to break. If we weren’t so exasperated, Tony would have been impressed. As it was, Tony was already trying to come up with ways to make Thor understand that his little brother dying of heat syndrome while under their care was in no way their fault. He wasn’t having a lot of luck.

                “He’ll come out when he’s ready,” Steve assured. “We can’t force him before then.”

                “We can’t just wait around while he dies!” Tony growled.

                “Omegas are tougher than you think,” Steve replied calmly, laying a gentle hand on Tony’s arm.

                “How the hell would you know?” Tony snapped, then went quiet. “Oh yeah, I guess you would.”

                Steve gave a small laugh. He’d had an awkward conversation with Tony months ago, revealing that he’d started out his life as an omega, and that the super serum had transformed him into an alpha. Tony had been surprisingly accepting. Still, Steve wasn’t sure that the Stark alpha had truly understood that Steve had been an omega, had been in those shoes, had lived part of his life as a failed breeder and had suddenly found himself as a knotter.

                “It’ll all work out,” Steve said, pulling Tony into his arms, liking the feel of the smaller man against him, liking the play of lithe muscles along the narrow form. He bent his head and nibbled at the juncture between Tony’s neck and shoulder. It made the smaller alpha groan and lean back against him, grinding back against Steve’s pelvis. It was all pretty innocent, compared to what they normally did. Still, they both jumped at the sound of a cough behind them, and separated immediately upon seeing Loki. Steve blushed and Tony laughed, but the alien prince just glared at them.

                “Speak of the devil,” Tony muttered.

                “And he will appear,” Loki finished, giving them a feral grin. “It’s one of your more popular Midguardian phrases. I like it.”

                “What can we do for you?” Steve asked when he’d recovered himself. Loki tipped his head and looked at the two of them speculatively.

                “That is the question, isn’t it? We both know why I’m here, and yet at no time this week have either of you taken advantage of my weakened state.”

                And it was obvious that Loki had weakened, even more than when he’d first arrived. He’d lost weight, which wasn’t surprising considering he’d turned up his nose at every offer of food they’d presented. On the other hand, human omegas tended to have nausea and suppressed appetites during their heat cycle, so it was possible that Loki was actually finding it difficult to eat. More than the lost weight and the obvious bloodshot eyes, Loki just looked worn and defeated. His hair hung lankly around his face. There was a tremor in his hands, and he tried to hide it by wrapping his arms around himself.

                “We’re not here to take advantage of you,” Steve argued. “Anything we do would be with your consent only, and only what you want to do.”

                “I’ve told your lover already, all I want is for this to be over with. Now, if you’re not going to service me, I request that you end my suffering, because I’ve had all I can take of this ridiculous torment that you call heat, and I’m likely to do something drastic to end it.”

                And that was the game, Tony thought. Not so much that Loki wanted to be helped, but that he had finally reached his breaking point. Steve stepped forward to argue again, but Tony grabbed the back of his shirt and stepped in front of him. One of them had to play ball with Loki, and Steve didn’t seem to get the game.

                “Prince Loki of Asguard,” Tony said, and gave a polished bow. “I request that you allow myself and my lover to aide you in your time of need. I ask that you consent to our care, with the understanding that we mere mortals will do our best not to damage your body or psyche.”

                Loki pondered him long enough that Tony wasn’t sure he’d get a response, before Loki finally lowered his head in a curt nod and said, “I consent.” Loki turned on his heel then and would have headed back into the darkness of his room, but Tony snagged his hand and whirled him around.

                “Whoa-whoa-whoa, there Prince of the Attitude, give us a little more than that. Hell, give me something to go on more than this ‘service’ shit. You got any kinks? Any red flags? Hell, anything that you even like?”

                “Power,” Loki said, then shrugged. “Most men do, I suppose, but I crave it. To be subjugated in this way… it’s repulsive to me.”

                “A power-hound, huh?” Tony said, and his face split into a slow grin. He glanced at Steve, who nodded in grudging approval. “I think we can handle that.”


	24. Loki's Prequel Part 3

                The mortals asked Loki to give them some time, and he almost laughed at them. It seemed like all anyone asked of him, anymore. Once, he’d been known for his powers and magical potions. Now, this illness had rendered his magic little more than a parlor trick. There was no way even to reach his secret stores of potions for something that might help restore his strength or reduce his torment. Not that it mattered much. He’d never gone this long without taking a lover. Most likely, even his strongest concoctions couldn’t relieve his suffering.

                He’d had lovers. He remembered few of them fondly. None could say the same, for not a single one of them remembered him. He’d banished their memories as soon as the spell on him had broken. After the first one had surprised him, he’d learned to hide when he began to sicken. He hadn’t wanted anyone near him, and was horrified when the skin on his hands and feet had turned blue. He’d mostly learned to control that, later. He’d also learned to lure males to him with his scent, and he’d never been surprised again. He’d find them when they were on a hunt and lead them to a remote cave, and leave them with a bleary hangover and no memory of the last week.

                That hadn’t been an option in prison. He held out longer than he’d expected, but he knew from experience that his mind began to unravel if he didn’t slake his need. He’d tried that method before, and it had almost ended in disaster when he’d been nearly too weak to undo his own spells.

                And that was the worst of it, in his mind. Not that he was the second son, born of an alien heritage, unable to claim the thrown that was better suited to him, if not his birthright. No, knowing that his mind and body, his very essence was able to betray him, to weaken him, to make him a thing of pity. That was the worst of it. That his own body would humiliate him, and there was no way to stop it.

                These mortals were the highest of his humiliations. He’d expected to be set upon by a rutting beast, and was neither impressed nor grateful that they’d chosen instead to revel in his misery. He could only think that having a god at their mercy was entertaining. Surely Thor had told them how desperate his need was. And still they’d chosen to wait. To force him to come to them, to grovel for relief from the aches and the misery and the madness. From the way his body would shake like it was nearly frozen and burn like fire at the same time. From the way his mind constantly conjured images of his former lovers, even the ones that he detested, even the two mortals who tortured him. In the end, he could not endure.

                The stronger mortal found him, the one that the dark haired man claimed was fit to couple with the god of Mischief. The smaller one –Tony, heir to the Stark empire, lord of this pitiful mortal castle – had asked him to vacate his cell for the moment, so the taller one – Steve, with the bearing of a soldier and the hands of an artist – found him restlessly reclining on the sofa in the den.

                “We’re ready for you,” Steve offered.

                “Oh, by all means, take your time,” Loki sneered at him. “What little you mortals have to spare.”

                “You know, you could lose a bit of the attitude,” the mortal dared to respond. Loki glared at him. When his powers returned, he’d smite that one twice as hard.

                “And you could speak with a bit more reverence to a god. If it weren’t for this sickness, I’d have you on your knees, mortal.”

                “If it weren’t for your heat,” Steve said evenly, “I feel like we’d be on the opposite sides of a battlefield, not a bedroom. Come on, if you want to get this over with.”

                Steve turned and walked out of the room, not waiting see if Loki would follow. Loki rose with a growl and stormed after the blonde alpha, who led him back to the room where he’d been staying. At the door, Steve paused and gave Loki an appraising look.

                “I will be watching you,” he said seriously. “If you step out of line, I will stop you.”

                “You will try,” Loki sneered.

                “I will succeed,” Steve promised, his eyes narrow and deadly. “I’m giving you something precious to me. I won’t let you break it for a whim, even if you think you’re a god.”

                And Steve was so genuine about it, that it managed to startle the prince.

                “You are giving me something precious to you,” Loki said, peering into Steve’s face, his anger lost to surprise. “More precious than you even know. What are you planning, mortal?”

                Instead of answering, Steve turned and opened the door.

                Tony was on his knees on the bed, his hands bound with a silk scarf in front of him and his eyes covered in another. The rest of him was naked and exposed, even the arc reactor in his chest. He couldn’t see the other two men, but he tensed when he heard them enter, his face lifting as he instinctively sought Steve’s reassurance.

                “What is this?” Loki asked. Steve could see from the way the prince held himself back that Loki wanted to approach, that he was more than interested in the nude form before him. But he stopped himself, uneasy and unsure. “An offering? An appeasement?”

                “A gift,” Steve replied simply. “A gift of power given willingly.”

                “Why?”

                “Because you asked and we were able. The heat is a gift that an omega gives to an alpha. It should never be forced or taken. It’s beautiful when it’s shared. We don’t have the luxury of waiting until you trust us enough to give us that gift. So we’re offering something of equal value in return.”

                “A trade,” Loki surmised, and Steve frowned, but the idea appealed to Loki. The heat had forever been out of his control, terrifying and loathed. He’d never assigned any value to it, never expected to gain any joy. This idea was novel to him, and he rolled it around in his mind a moment before setting it aside for later. “So what did you plan, mortal? That I would take him and you would take me? And how does he take his pleasure?”

                “Tony takes pleasure from submitting, from being taken and dominated. It’s not…” and here, Steve hesitated momentarily. “It’s not something that I’m willing to participate in very often.”

                “Is your lover more adventurous than you?” Loki teased viciously. Steve ground his teeth and reminded himself that Loki was just acting out. That he couldn’t really be this much of a prick.

                “Tony is far more breakable than I am,” Steve replied as evenly as he could manage. “I’m sure you’re aware of how easy it is to harm someone of… mortal capabilities.”

                “If I weren’t so drained of my powers, I’d have to be careful of sneezing in your direction,” Loki said, but his eyes had turned back to Tony’s restless form. After a moment of watching Tony shift, Loki’s eyes cast to Steve again, ran down his serum-enhanced body. It was like Loki knew that it wasn’t natural, that everything about Steve’s new body came out of a bottle. “All that strength and speed in a mortal. How frightening it must be for you. You must feel that everything is glass in your hands.”

                For a moment, Steve couldn’t answer, frozen by Loki’s unexpected perceptiveness. But Steve knew better than to let the temperamental God get any kind of advantage on him.

                “I’ve adjusted,” Steve replied with a shrug, then continued, “Tony’s up for just about anything when he gets like this. I’ll let you know if you’re going too far. If he tells you to stop, you back off immediately. If you do not bring him to climax, then I will do it when we’re done.”

                At this, Loki turned up his nose in scorn.

                “I haven’t had many lovers, mortal, but I’ve never had a man leave my bed unsatisfied,” he snarled and turned from Steve, but Steve caught his arm.

                “One more thing,” Steve cautioned, unperturbed by Loki’s anger. “For your heat to end, you’ll need to let me mount you. I’ll let you tell me how you want it, but all the sex in the world isn’t going to fix it unless you let me knot you.”

                “I am aware of that,” Loki hissed, and wrenched his arm away. “I’m more than aware of how desperate you are to shove your cock in me!”

                “I am perfectly happy with my alpha!” Steve snarled back. “I don’t need-”

                “Guys!” Tony snapped from the bed. “Hearing you two bicker is really killing my submissive side. Are one of you fellas going to handle me, or am I going to need to invent something to handle myself?”

                It was enough of a distraction to pull Steve and Loki back from each other, to give them a second to cool their tempers. Steve was the first to get himself under control.

                “I don’t want to fight with you,” Steve said quietly. “I’m sorry if you feel like I’m out to get you. I know what it feels like to be hunted for your gender.”

                Loki scoffed and said, “You know nothing.”

                “I do know,” he said earnestly. “I was an omega myself, and the weakest of the lot. Everybody thought they could have a piece of me. If I hadn’t had my ma and my best friend, I never would have survived.” And that, Steve could tell, took Loki by surprise. “So, I promise, I’ll do what I can to make this less humiliating for you. Whatever you need. Whatever you want.”

And that put a smirk on Loki’s face.

“Big promises, mortal.”

                “I keep my promises,” Steve assured.

                “I’m fucking leaving,” Tony snarled. At that point, Loki and Steve finally returned their attention to him, only to find that the submissive had run out of patience and was now trying to exit the bed with his arms tied. “You two keep having your little heart to heart!” he growled. “I’ll just cut myself loose, shall I?”

                “Oh, but you’re the entertainment,” Loki purred as he approached the bed. He flicked his wrist, and suddenly the fabric holding Tony’s hands was pulled toward the ceiling, forcing Tony to stretch his limbs and go high on his knees. The scarf that was wrapped around his eyes slipped free and settled around his neck, then pulled straight up just tight enough for him to feel the choking sensation without actually obstructing his airway. Steve tensed but said nothing. Tony moaned enthusiastically.

                Loki was still in his Asguardian dress, and as he divested himself of the heavy garments the scent of ripe omega filled the room. Tony and Steve both scented the air, their cocks became hard as Loki’s pheromones took effect. It made Steve tense up, but Tony became almost overwhelmed with lust, pulling against his bonds as his cock bobbed between his legs.

                “Don’t get impatient,” Loki instructed, revealing a slim form covered in milk-white skin and sinewy, toned muscles. “I want to see what’s being offered to me.”

                He climbed onto the bed behind Tony and ran his hands across the alpha’s form, down his sides and along his flanks. Loki’s hands even came up to cup Tony’s testicles, run down his length, and even cup his half-hard knot. Steve let his eyes wander over the pair, took in the sight of his lover and their omega, and felt himself growing aroused.

                Tony, meanwhile, was obviously aroused. Loki’s hands teased skillfully over his body, running too-light strokes over the alphas hard cock, tweeking at his nipples, running his fingernails across Tony’s skin. By the time Loki finished his inspection, Tony’s cock was fully erect, with a drop of precome beading at the tip. His hips were thrusting desperately at nothing, his breath coming in ragged pants. Behind him, Tony could feel Loki’s erection brushing his hip, and he desperately wanted it inside of him.  

                “Would you like me to fuck you, alpha?” Loki asked, his voice deceptively soft as his lips teased along Tony’s nape. “Would you want me to fill you with this slim, knotless omega cock?”

                “Yes,” Tony hissed, his hips thrusting wantonly back against Loki.

                “Ask for it,” Loki demanded, and it took only a moment of hesitation for the Stark heir to acquiesce.

                “Please, fuck me!” he pleaded as Loki ran those strong fingers along the cleft of his ass. “Please!” Tony begged again, and Loki’s fingers prodded deeper, finding that Tony had already been slicked and stretched for this. Loki felt a moment of anger – he wasn’t a savage, he could be trusted to prepare the alpha to take his cock, could be trusted not to hurt him – but in the end he was simply pleased that he wouldn’t have to waste time getting Tony ready.

                Loki slipped his fingers into the alpha. There was plenty of lubricant, despite the alpha’s lack of natural self-lubrication. Tony thrust back against those fingers wantonly. Moaning. Encouraging. Taking what he wanted.

                Loki brought his free hand down on Tony’s thigh with a resounding smack. Steve started forward, but stopped himself when Tony groaned in pleasure.

                “Be still, mortal,” Loki corrected firmly. Tony nodded, and Loki resumed slowly fucking him with his fingers. After only a few strokes, though, Tony pushed his hips back again, impaling himself on the god’s long fingers. Loki growled, and snapped the fingers of his other hand to release Tony’s bonds. Tony fell to the bed, catching himself on this hands and knees.

                “Perhaps you need a stronger lesson,” Loki said, his voice dripping with sensuality. His fingers left Ton’s hole, and Tony couldn’t help but buck his hips after them. His hips jerked the other direction, however, when Loki rained more than a dozen stinging blows upon Tony’s ass, making the skin turn an angry red. Loki flicked his eyes to Steve, who was watching carefully from just beyond the bed, but Steve only nodded to Loki in unspoken consent.

                The pain did not cause the Stark heir to shy away. Although Loki was careful of the tender mortal flesh beneath his palms, he made sure that the blows were hard enough to sting, to raise angry red welts on Tony’s ass and thighs. But Tony did not cry out or pull away. On the contrary, the pain put him into almost a trance-like state, and by the end he was panting and bucking his hips encouragingly. The sight of it, of Tony submitting and even enjoying Loki’s dominance, sent a bolt of lust straight to the omega’s cock.

                “Oh god,” Tony moaned, and his voice was hoarse with need. “Please,” he said desperately, with an earnestness that had been lacking earlier. “Please, please fuck me Loki. Please give me your cock. Please!”

                And Loki, he thought, was nothing if not a benevolent god. He quickly lined his dripping cock up with Tony’s hole and slowly fed it inside the alpha, ever aware that the alpha wasn’t designed for this, and even in his weakened state Loki could hurt Tony if he rushed this part.

                But Tony was far from new to this, having occasionally taken Steve’s larger alpha cock over the last year. Tony moaned and tried to buck back against him, but Loki held him still in an unrelenting grip.

                “Cease, Starkson, or you’ll get another strike instead of my manhood,” Loki warned, and Tony stilled himself, more afraid that Loki would take his cock away than of the threatened punishment.

                It took minutes of slow pressure and shallow thrusting. To ever-impatient Tony, it seemed like eons. But finally, after ages, Tony felt Loki’s testicles brush against his ass. Tony took a moment to bask in how deep Loki was buried, how nice Loki’s cock felt inside him. Loki was silent as well, but he seemed to be waiting for something.

                “Would you have me now, mortal?” Loki asked, his voice smooth except for a slight quiver in the middle. His eyes went to Steve and watched him warily, obviously expecting the alpha to pounce now that Loki was coupled with Tony. Steve saw the way Loki’s form stilled while waiting for his answer, how Loki’s shoulders tensed at it.

                “No,” Steve told him, and made no move to remove his clothes despite the obvious erection tenting his pants. “I’ll wait until you’re finished with Tony. When you orgasm inside of him, you’ll become desperate. With your permission, I’ll put you on my cock and let you ride me. Are we agreed?”

                Loki hesitated only a moment before nodding, and turned back and began thrusting into Tony’s tight hole. Tony moaned, his hand reaching for his cock, but Loki slapped it away. They were both nearly desperate – from the prolonged foreplay, the remaining arousal from the spanking Tony had received, and from the effects of Loki’s pheromones. Even just having Loki’s cock inside him had brought Tony nearly to orgasm. But Loki wanted to draw this out, wanted to squeeze every drop of pleasure from this encounter that he could. It was so different from his other heat experiences. And he had so few memories of sex that he could actually say that he enjoyed, that weren’t so clouded by his sickness that he could hardly recognize himself from an animal.

                “Not yet,” he growled, and his voice had lost some of its smoothness and control as Loki chased his own orgasm. Tony growled something under his breath and reached for his cock again, but a hard slap to his ass convinced him to let it alone. Loki gave a pleased smile and shoved him forward hard, knocking Tony off his hands and pushing him down until his face was buried in the mattress, his ass raised high in the air.

                Loki’s thrusts became more erratic, pounding into the submissive alpha beneath him. He leaned over Tony, putting most of his weight on Tony’s back, and Tony groaned at the feel of the added weight. His ass fluttered around Loki’s pistoning cock, and his own cock dotted the sheets with his come. But Loki was nearing his edge too, and he reached around to grab Tony’s erection. Three strokes of those talented fingers, and Tony was screaming, his face buried in the mattress to muffle it, his semen splattering across the bed beneath them. His ass clenched down on Loki, milking Loki tightly as Loki’s thrusts lost their pace and he pounded into Tony’s ass.

                When he came, Loki did so silently. Instead, he threw his head back and buried his cock in Tony’s ass. His mouth opened in a silent scream. Tony, feeling Loki’s orgasm, clenched his muscles to milk the omega’s cock, pulling the semen out of Loki. Slick dribbled down Loki’s thighs, mirroring the come sliding down Tony’s.

                Then Loki collapsed, his shoulders sagging and his head hanging. He was breathing heavily, his body covered in a light sheen of sweat. His pupils were blown like he’d been drugged, his eyes unfocused and half-lidded. His whole body projected need. When he pulled out, neither alpha was surprised to find that he was still hard, his body still looking to breed despite his recent coupling.


	25. Chapter 25

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just finished, right now. So if there are mistakes, so sorry, but I wanted to finish tonight. Thanks for reading! Comments greatly appreciated!

                Steve moved in then, moving slowly so that he didn’t startle Loki. But Loki was too unfocused to even notice him. Steve’s first task was to take care of Tony and get him out of the way. Luckily, Loki had already pulled out of Tony, so Steve merely had to haul the insensate alpha to the edge of the bed. Tony would need a few minutes to recover from that kind of orgasm, and it would keep him out of the way while Steve went to Loki. Steve had brought several bottles of water into the room earlier and set them by the bed. He forced Tony to sit up and helped him drink a couple mouthfuls of room-temperature water.

                “Get off, Steve,” Tony protested. “You’re ruining my buzz.”

                “Just drink that,” Steve ordered in a low voice, running his fingers through Tony’s hair adoringly. “You were lovely with Loki. I was jealous.”

                “Well go get some,” Tony replied. “It’s your turn.”

                “Not jealous of you,” Steve corrected. “Jealous of him.”

                “You get this all the time,” Tony protested, waving the water bottle at himself. “Why would you be jealous of that?”

                “The way you looked when he restrained you, when he slapped you…” Steve said, his voice yearning, yet still hesitant.

                “You can have that any time you want. You said you didn’t think you could do it.”

                “I didn’t,” Steve confirmed. “But now… I think maybe I want to try?”

                “You won’t hear me complain,” Tony said, then winked. “Especially not if you gag me.”

                Steve laughed, and gave his lover a quick kiss before turning to Loki.

                Loki had not moved while Steve tended to Tony. His body was in the same position, with his head hanging and his shoulders sagged, his cock still bobbing and an angry purple color. Steve could see tremors running through the omega’s form and knew that Loki was being overwhelmed by his lust. Steve touched Loki’s shoulder and Loki’s head snapped up, but he stared at Steve in almost an uncomprehending way.

                “Can you drink some water for me?” Steve asked gently. He expected Loki to give him an angry retort, but Loki just reached out mechanically for the water, then downed the bottle in three large, desperate gulps. Steve contemplated handing him another bottle, knowing that omegas could dehydrate easily between the exertion and their own lubrication system, but decided against it. He didn’t want to make Loki sick with too much liquid, so instead he took the empty bottle and threw it away.

                Then Steve knelt beside Loki and reached out to stroke his cheek. Loki’s eyes, now nearly fevered with lust, met Steve’s.

                “Are you ready for me?” Steve questioned. Loki nodded and cleared his throat.

                “End this, alpha,” Loki said, but it lacked his usual bluster. His voice just seemed tired and resigned. Steve brushed the hair from Loki’s forehead, leaned forward and kissed the glistening skin. Loki allowed it.

                Steve pulled back then and quickly removed his clothes, dropping them beside the bed. His cock sprung from his pants fully erect, his knot with just a hint of swelling. It made Loki flinch away, but then he steeled himself, resolved to allow Steve to mate with him if only to end this torment. When Steve turned to put his clothes in the hamper, however, Loki took a sudden interest.

                “What’s that?” he wondered, leaning forward as his curiosity overwhelmed his lust for a moment. “There- inside you. What is that thing?”

                And Steve blushed, because of course Loki would notice _that_ instead of anything else. But there was no use trying to lie to the trickster god, so Steve turned back and resigned himself to the truth.

                “It’s a sex toy,” he explained without turning to face Loki, but instead glanced over his shoulder to see Loki’s reaction. On still seeing the confusion on Loki’s face he tried, “A phallus?” There was a visible dawning comprehension in Loki’s expression, followed by even deeper confusion. Steve refused to show weakness by turning around, but he had the urge to at least cover the base of the purple silicon toy. Before Loki could even form any more questions, Steve headed it off. “It helps me orgasm,” he explained. “Because I was an omega, I sometimes have trouble reaching completion without something inside of me. Since you seemed so interested in having Tony, we decided this would probably be the safest compromise.”

                Loki was silent for several moments, his eyes trained on Steve’s abdomen like he was trying to see through Steve’s flesh to the dildo inside. Hell, Steve thought, maybe he could see into Steve’s body with his magic. Loki swallowed thickly, his eyes darted up to meet Steve’s as Steve watched him over his shoulder.

                “Show me?” Loki asked, and it was testament to how much Loki wanted this, that the demand was actually phrased as a question. Steve hesitated a moment, his eyes glancing to where Tony was still dozing on the other side of the bed, and then he shrugged and crawled onto the bed.

                Loki’s fingers were as quick and curious as the rest of him, and Steve was immediately accosted by long, slender digits. They unhesitatingly sought and found the base of the toy, but a cursory tug would not dislodge it.

                “Pull it slowly,” Steve instructed. “The base has a groove so it won’t slip out accidentally.”

                Loki nodded, none of his usual mischievousness present on his serious countenance. He gave a firmer pull this time, a constant pressure instead of the original tug, and Steve felt the toy slip slowly free. It was long, almost as long as Steve’s own cock when it was fully erect and as wide as a normal cock. The material was a synthetic polymer with just enough flexibility that it contoured with Steve’s body, but enough rigidity that it could be inserted easily. It was one of Steve’s favorite toys, designed and produced by Tony’s company. It had been an anniversary gift, and marked the first time that Steve had fucked and orgasmed inside of Tony, instead of the other way around. Seeing it always brought back good memories.

                Seeing it in Loki’s hands, though, was strangely stirring as well. Steve waited on all fours as Loki scanned the object, his fingers delicately holding the base.

                “What a remarkable object you Midguardians have created,” Loki commented, and his eyes flicked back to Steve. “If only I could use this to service myself through this sickness.”

                “We haven’t found the necessary hormones for that to be possible,” Steve responded, and was somewhat surprised to find himself feeling bad about it. He’d never met anyone quite so repulsed by sex, and he wished there was some other way to help Loki. But Loki just shrugged.

                “It’s unlikely that your mortal medicine would work on me anyway. It’s for the same reason that I haven’t asked you how one can go from an omega to an alpha.”

                “It was an accident anyway,” Steve admitted. “The serum was never supposed to change my gender, and we haven’t been able to replicate it since.”

                “Of course,” Loki said with a roll of his eyes. “The first useful thing you mortals create and it’s by an impossible accident. May I put this away?” he asked, and gestured at the phallus. Steve nodded, expecting Loki to set it aside for Steve to retrieve later, but instead he set the head of the phallus against Steve’s hole and slowly pressed it back in.

                Loki didn’t fuck Steve with the dildo so much as he returned the dildo to its original location in a slow, non-linear, torturous manner. The insertion was so deliberate that it made Steve moan, and when Loki paused to give him a few quick, shallow thrusts, it was all Steve could do not to fuck himself on the plastic cock.

                But Steve wasn’t the only one affected. When Steve finally felt the base of the dildo press against his ass, he turned to Loki only to find the demi-god panting, his cock rock-hard again and spilling come down the head and shaft to drip onto the bed. Loki’s eyes were fever-bright with lust. Steve knew Loki liked to have power over others, but he’d never imagine that Loki would get such pleasure from exerting his influence over Steve.

                “Enough of this,” Loki said, his voice rasping with need. “No more playing, mortal. We end this, now.”

                But Loki’s determination didn’t make his self-perceived submission any easier. Loki came determinedly into Steve’s embrace, and Steve could feel the iron control of the omega. Steve could tell that Loki had to force himself to allow this touch, even while his body begged for it. Steve pressed Loki backwards until the omega was reclined, his knees bent, with Steve between them. More slick was glistening on his thighs, and Steve took a moment to run his fingers through it. He breathed Loki’s scent in and basked in the pheromones that made his cock bob excitedly. Steve stroked his fingers over Loki’s cock, making the omega whimper.

                Then his fingers dipped lower, skimming over Loki’s testicles, following the path of his ass until Steve’s fingers finally found Loki’s sopping, wet opening and gently teased their way inside. Loki hissed like someone had punched him in the stomach, his rim spasming wildling around Steve’s fingers, trying to pull the alpha in deeper. Steve fucked Loki open slowly with his fingers while the omega moaned and thrashed beneath him. Finally, when Loki’s hole could take four fingers and Steve’s hand was covered in slick up to his wrist, Steve pulled back.

                Loki watched, puzzled as Steve laid on the bed beside him. On the far side of the bed, Tony had finally roused and turned on his side to watch the pair, and gave a gleeful smile at Loki’s confusion. Steve’s cock bobbed between his legs, standing at full attention and beading precome at the tip. Loki couldn’t understand what had caused Steve to pull away. Not even when Steve tugged at his arm and guided Loki to straddle his thighs.

                “I want you to ride me,” Steve reminded. “That way you can control the pace. Can you do that for me? Do you understand?”

                Loki scoffed – or tried to, anyway. The sound that he produced was probably closer to a gasp than a scoff, but Loki attempted to at least make his expression satisfactorily derisive. He wasn’t entirely successful at that, either. Especially not with the way his eyes kept drifting hungrily to Steve’s cock.

                Was it more shameful, Loki wondered, to voluntarily submit himself to this debasement, rather than have it forced upon him? This was still a mortal that he was planning to couple with, still a lesser being that he was allowing to use his body. But it felt strangely different this time, even from his previous heats where he’d surprised an Aesir into joining with him. Somehow, it felt almost like he was using these mortals solely for his own pleasure, like they were servicing his body instead of using it. And that, certainly, couldn’t be shameful, could it?

                Loki hesitated for a moment before shifting himself, putting his thighs on either side of Steve’s. The position put them cock-to-cock, with Loki’s slim, pale rod parallel to the tan flesh of Steve’s thicker dick. They stared at each other for a moment, but Steve knew better than to move. This was a test. Loki wanted to make sure that he was safe, that Steve would not grab or pin him, and Steve was determined not to fail.

                Finally, after what felt like eons, Loki moved again, this time to wrap his hand around both their cocks. The feel of another man’s cock against his own made Steve groan. He just barely kept himself from thrusting his hips. He couldn’t keep his cock from bobbing with excitement or his hands from fisting in the bedsheets. But Loki grinned, so he figured it was probably okay.

                “You seem almost as excited as I am,” Loki teased. “Perhaps I’ll torment you like this all night.” But Steve knew it was a bluff. Loki’s cock was bobbing just as excitedly, and Steve’s thighs were covered in Loki’s slick, from where Loki was sitting across Steve’s legs. Loki was ready. A less controlled omega would be begging already. Knowing what a heat was like for an omega, even the mild heat’s head gone through as a teen, gave Steve a better respect for Loki’s determination.

                “Whatever you want,” Steve found himself saying. “Whatever you say, whatever you need, I’ll let you have it. You’re in control.”

                Loki’s eyes went sharp with lust and the scent of arousal thickened in the room. In one sharp movement, Loki pushed himself up and settled over Steve’s cock, with the crown pressing against Loki’s hole. With a moan that was part pain and part relief, Loki sank slowly down onto Steve’s thick shaft, until the swell of Steve’s knot was pressing against his ass.

                “Damn, that’s a nice sight,” Tony commented, unapologetically leering from across the bed. It made Steve chuckle, but Loki just tilted his head haughtily and then forgot about Tony altogether in favor of grinding his hips against Steve’s thighs.

                Loki found Steve to be a more than satisfactory lover. Despite being a mortal, Steve’s body radiated strength and his cock stayed hard and hot inside Loki’s body. But it was more Steve’s temperament that interested the prince. Where other alphas would grab at him, would pin him and rut against him like maddened beasts, Steve kept a firm reign on his faculties. Where Loki thought Steve would only allow him to mount in the upper position, and that Steve would roll them as soon as Steve’s cock was buried in Loki’s body, Steve did nothing of the sort. Instead, Steve laid passively beneath Loki as the god settled himself, even as Loki began to grind his body against Steve’s pelvis in a way that would have driven lesser alphas mad. And yet, the most Steve did was to bring his hands to Loki’s hips to steady the omega. In no way did those hands seek to pin or manipulate him. It was baffling for Loki to find himself in a sexual position of power when his sickness put him at the mercy of the alphas around him.

                Still, Loki decided that he would enjoy this. With the heat teasing his mind and body to new levels of lust, with Steve’s cock buried deliciously in his ass, Loki could see nothing to lose from giving in to his biology for once. Loki’s grinding turned into pulsating thrusts, and then into full-fledged thrusts, and then suddenly Loki was bouncing on Steve’s cock. And Steve was taking it, open-mouthed and panting, but he made no move to restrain Loki. Steve stayed perfectly still as Loki set his pace, bouncing himself at a maddening speed on Steve’s cock.

                And Loki felt so good, his cock was so hard, and it has never been like this before. He had never enjoyed it like this before, in a way that was truly pleasure and not just a haze of lust. And Loki thought that maybe, maybe he’d be able to get through this. Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad. And he rode Steve’s cock like a whore and stroked his own cock as it bobbed between their bodies, and he moaned in a way that he had never allowed himself before. He moaned like he loved it.

                And when it seemed like it was all going smashingly – like Loki could take a knot and get better and go home – then it all came crashing down.

                Loki felt his magic fluctuate just an instant before it happened. His heart seized with terror and he tried to pull away from Steve, but the alpha had a firm grip on his hips. In his weakened state, he couldn’t pull out of Steve’s grasp. He was trapped, and his magic was about to fail him.

                Beneath him, Steve had no idea what would cause Loki to suddenly panic, when he’d seemed for all intents and purposes to be enjoying himself. When Loki tried pull away, Steve held him still, more afraid the Loki would hurt himself in his panic than opposed to letting Loki pulling off his cock.

                Then Loki’s skin shimmered, and his body changed. Pale skin darkened until it was a deep blue. Green eyes deepened to a ruby red. And all over the flawless skin traced jagged designs.

                It was beautiful. And a bit terrifying.

                “If you’re trying to scare us off,” Tony said blandly from across the bed, “then you’re going to have to do better than that.”

                “Yes. Yes, I’m trying to frighten you,” Loki tried, hoping he could get away and force his magic to change his form once again. “So you’d best let me go, or suffer the consequences.”

                “Eh,” Tony replied, shifting closer with a grin, “I’ll take my chances.”

                But Steve could feel the way Loki’s heart was pounding, the way his form was shaking. The body on his lap was identical to the one that sat there only minutes ago, and only his coloring had changed, not his size or his weight, or the feel of his skin. The shape of his body, even the shape of his face, was the same. His hair stayed in the same disheveled array. Even the eyes, which a moment ago were green, had the same horrified look. Suddenly Thor’s words were ringing through his mind – adopted brother, frost giant – and Steve wondered if perhaps this look was more than skin deep.

                “It’s beautiful,” Steve found himself saying as his hands wondered across the taut abs and down to his lean thighs, tracing the markings that now covered the same creamy skin. Ruby-red eyes jumped to Steve’s face, disbelieving.

                Tony didn’t so much catch on as barrel along the same path that Steve had set, and said, “Yeah man, if you wanted to scare us you should have taken something a bit less sexy-alien looking. All the blue skin looks damn fine to me.” Tony reached out to run is fingers down Loki’s arm, feeling the same strange patterns that wove their way across the rest of his body. “It’s really tribal-chic, you know? Old-school artistry. It’s not usually my thing, but I like it.”

                And now it was Tony’s turn to have the baffled stare of two red eyes turn upon him, until Steve gently said, “Thor told me you weren’t his blood brother, that your true parentage was Frost Giants. Is this what your other lovers discovered? Is this why you wiped their memories, why you wouldn’t ask for them while you were incarcerated?”

                “They were terrified,” Loki admitted, his voice cold and angry. “One tried to run while we were knotted and I had to knock him out. Another threatened to tell everyone what I was – I didn’t even know I was a frost giant at the time, or that I was adopted. I just thought there was something wrong with me, so of course I wiped their minds of the encounter. I hadn’t truly desired them anyway, the sickness simply took over me. It made me take them, and then it changed me into this monster. You can’t imagine the shame I felt, the horror at my own body. And then to learn that my parents had known the whole time and had kept it from me on purpose? I was so enraged. I wanted them to pay for my humiliation!”

                “And Thor?” Steve prompted, unable to believe that the thunder god would ever harm his beloved younger brother. “Did he know?”

                “No,” Loki admitted, his voice toning down to a simmering resentment. “Thor didn’t know until I told him. He was innocent.”

                “Is that why you wanted him for your lover, even though he sees you as a brother? As his true brother?”

                “I knew Thor would never harm me,” Loki said, unable to meet Steve’s eyes. “But I also knew that he would not be frightened of me, not matter what form I took.”

                “I am not afraid,” Steve told him sternly, his hands settling on Loki’s hips again. It made a grin appear on Loki’s face.

                “Foolish perhaps,” Loki commented smugly, rolling his hips, “but not afraid.”

                Steve groaned as Loki began to move again, and dared to roll his hips and buck up at Loki. Whatever fear Loki had been feeling fell away, and Loki began to move in earnest, rocking down onto Steve’s cock. It was so good, but Steve could tell that it wasn’t enough for the demanding omega.

                “Tony,” Steve called to the other alpha, who was watching with interest. “Can you come suck him?

                “Can I- Steve,” Tony said with mock-offense, “I’ve never turned down a request like that in my life.”

                There was an awkward moment as Tony crawled over – not of hesitancy over Loki’s form, but of uncertainly over the mechanics of the situation. In the end, Steve was the most levelheaded and turned Loki around, settling him so that he was facing away from Steve and still riding Steve’s cock. Tony crawled up between Steve’s legs to where Loki was kneeling. Tony’s fingers are just a bit hesitant, but they reach immediately toward the now blue skin of Loki’s thigh, tracing the tattooed lines intently. Loki watched the alpha’s face for signs of disgust or horror, but only interest and excitement flashed through those eyes. Tony seemed delighted by Loki’s change, like he’d just found a new toy.

                There was only a single spired line on Loki’s new, blue cock, but Tony’s fingers traced the pattern up Loki’s thigh and across his pelvis, then dipped his head and traced the curving line across Loki’s cock with his tongue. Loki thought that it was possibly the best thing that had ever been done to him. He threw his head back and moaned in appreciation, his fingers tangling in Tony’s hair as he ground himself down on Steve’s cock. When he looked back down, he could see the smug grin on Tony’s face and matched it with one of his own.

                “You seem to like that,” came a graveled voice from behind him, and it was only then that he registered Steve’s hands on his hips, or the way Steve was half-sitting now and watching Tony over Loki’s shoulder. “Do you like watching that alpha suck your cock?” Steve asked, and shifted so that his front almost brushed against Loki’s back, so that Loki could just feel Steve’s breath on his shoulder. Loki shivered, his cock bobbing at Steve’s lewd words, and he could almost sense Steve grin. “Look at that sweet mouth,” Steve continued, and Loki could see that it was having a similar stimulant effect on Tony’s cock. Loki couldn’t help but watch as Tony’s left hand reached for his own cock, even as his right hand and his mouth worked Loki’s. “Loki, omega son of Asguard, who brings alphas to their knees. Look at that him swallow your cock.”

                It was a combination of everything – of Steve’s cock in his ass, of Tony’s mouth on his cock, of the relief of being accepted without hiding his true form – but to Loki it felt almost like Steve talked him to orgasm, like the dirty mouth at his ear whispered filth until Loki’s orgasm hit him. Loki screamed as it hit, bouncing frantically, working Steve’s cock at the same time he thrust into Tony’s accommodating mouth. The pleasure seared through him, dulling everything else. It was only distantly that Loki was aware of Steve moaning and clutching Loki’s hips, of shoving his knot into Loki’s ass and coming with a hot splatter deep inside of Loki. Loki could feel the knot inflating, securing him as tightly as the strong arms that wrapped around him. In front of him, he watched Tony kneel and shudder, Loki’s come still drying on the alpha’s lips, as Tony worked his cock and came with a groan, his hot seed splattering the sheets between his legs.

                Loki went limp in Steve’s arms, the pleasure still singing through his body. Almost as limp as Tony, who toppled to the side in an ungainly heap. Steve chuckled, and Loki could feel the reverberations against his back, and realized that he was pulled tight against Steve’s chest. Steve sighed in contentment and nuzzled Loki’s neck, his knot still pulsing in the omega’s ass. Then Steve gently lowered Loki to the bed beside him, still spooned and stuck against Loki’s back. Tony huffed and moved out of the wet spot he’d made for himself and settled against Loki’s front, one hand draped across Loki’s hip to twine his fingers with Steve’s.

                “Alright, mortals,” Loki said sleepily, still feeling the pleasure in his body and the warmth of his lovers wrapped around him. “I’ll admit it. That was… acceptable.”

                By the time they woke, Loki’s skin had returned to his normal color. Steve’s knot had deflated while they’d slept, and Loki was feeling empty and horny. He roused Tony by sucking on the mortal’s cock, and together they roused Steve for another round of lovemaking. Loki found that his body was still weak and unstable, his power surging and disappearing at random. He knew from experience that the heat could last a few days. But he was not as repulsed by this idea as he had been with his previous lovers.

                By the third round of the night. Loki was feeling nearly drunk with lust and exhaustion. Both Tony and Steve were spent, and Loki gazed at the sleeping alphas with amusement and affection. He chuckled as he slid out of the bed on unsteady legs, then cursed as those legs refused to hold him. They buckled and sent him tumbling noisily to the floor. The alphas stirred, and Loki felt a wave of anger and humiliation. His magic surged, the opposite of how it had felt earlier, and Loki released it with an angry snap. Steve and Tony jumped awake as the bed clattered and fell, dropping until it was nearly on the floor. Loki got to his feet unhurriedly, like nothing was amiss. When Steve peered over the side of the bed, he found that the bed had been lowered considerably to make it easier for Loki to get in and out.

                “That’s probably a good idea,” Steve acknowledged before rising to help Loki to the bathroom. Tony just turned over and when back to sleep.

                Loki spent the better part of three days vacillating between heat-drunk and resentfully surly. Tony loved it. He liked introducing Loki to Earth technology, and even came to think of “pathetic mortal” as a term of endearment. Steve drove himself half-crazy trying to keep an eye on the trickster. Between the fact that Loki had almost no balance when he was heat-drunk and almost no patience when he was not, Steve started pulling his hair out by the end of the first day. Thankfully, the super-serum replaced it almost immediately. Loki spent much of his time tripping over things and then hurling fireballs at them for their insolence. Tony thought it was hilarious. Less so when he got the bill.

                Thor visited only once. His visit was timed for the middle of the day, and he was lucky enough that Loki was awake, aware, and wearing his own skin (and clothes). Jarvis announced the elder prince’s arrival, and Steve took a quick glance around. The sitting room was a bit disheveled (they’d fucked three times in here when the bedroom had become boring and cramped) but nothing stood out as offensive. Loki was likewise a bit less than composed, with his hair a mess and some bags under his eyes, but his skin was less pallid than a day ago and his eyes seemed a bit clearer.

                When Thor entered the room, however, his eyes filled with rage and turned angrily on Steve.

                “What is the meaning of this!” he bellowed at the soldier. In confusion, Steve glanced over his shoulder at Loki, only to find a pitiful creature where the god had just sat. Instead of the vibrant Loki of a moment ago, this one looked pale and sickly, his body covered in dark bruises, even peeking out from beneath his clothes. A black eye marred his face, and there was a jagged, scabbed cut on his bottom lip. His eyes were wide and pleading, half-filled with tears.          

                “Brother, look what they’ve done to me!” Loki cried, holding his slender, bruised wrists out to his older sibling. “Please, you must help me!”

                Thor turned horrified, enraged eyes on Steve. He took an aggressive step forward, but Steve held his ground. To cower would be an admission of guilt, so Steve made no movement, neither forward nor back. Instead, he said slowly and carefully, “If you believed that I was capable of such and act, you never would have left your brother with me.”

                The words, or simply the calmness of Steve’s voice, made Thor pause. His hands, which had clenched into fists, dropped to his sides. He turned his attention back to Loki with a long-suffering sigh and said, “Enough tricks, brother.”

                The bruises faded as Loki pouted, then grinned mischievously. “It was a good trick, though.”

                “It was awful, as all your tricks are,” Thor replied, but he was smiling now, and relief showed through all of his features. He, more than anyone else, had been worried for Loki’s safety. Seeing his brother recovering – enough to play pranks even! – delighted Thor more than he was willing to admit.

                The brothers embraced, and Steve excused himself to give them some privacy, and went to find Tony in the labs. Thor’s visit was not long, as he was still leading his father’s guards astray, but even Steve could see that the visit had been good for Loki. He smiled more easily and set fewer things on fire that night.

                On the third day, the three spent almost the entire time in bed. Loki was so desperate that he had begun to fuck himself on Tony’s cock, even though he knew that it was little more than a placebo in terms of hormones. Tony didn’t complain, and Steve was grateful for the break. Loki’s heat had gotten to the desperate, almost constantly horny stage that told both the alphas that it was about to break. By the time it did actually break – with Loki allowing Steve for the first time to mount him from behind, while Loki was on his knees and screaming into the bedclothes – the alphas were almost too exhausted to notice. Steve barely registered the change in pheromones in the room as he settled Loki on his left side, and pulled the already sleeping Tony against his right. He just barely managed a smile and a pleased sense of accomplishment as he gazed at the headstrong brunette – both of them, actually – before he fell asleep nestled between his alpha and omega lovers.

                On the morning of the fourth day, Loki was gone.

                Six months later, Tony, Steve, and Thor managed to rescue him from the Chitauri.


End file.
